A recent study indicates that children living in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal have lower levels of tooth decay than children living in suburban areas in the United States, despite the fact that people in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal re

The argument postulates that dental care is not a helpful tool for preventing tooth decay. To validate this conclusion the author cites lower level of tooth decay among Himalayan children from mountain region. Though tooth decay may not be correlated with number of dental visits per year, the argument has several logical fallacies that prevent from agreeing with the arguer and require different explanation for the phenomenon. To begin with, the true reason of tooth decay can be merely attributed to access to dental care, but more to education on dental health. If someone does not brush his teeth at least twice a day and, preferably, use dental floss, his or her teeth will inevitably decay; and visiting a dentist on a monthly basis will prevent cavities from developing further but won't ever be stopped. So, may be american suburbs do not educate their children on importance of dental hygine, hoping that any cavity will be fixed at clinic, while Himalayan parent are well aware that dentists are unavailable because of some reason (expensive, or too far, or unprofessional, etc) and prefer to prevent issue rather than fix it later. Though dental education is important and could be a good explanation of the phenomenon, more plausible explanation, from my point of view, rests on the assumption that Himalayan children have a very different diet compared to that of american children. Quantity of sugar that average american child consumes every year significantly exceeds norm. Today, sugar is present almost in any food: sauces, milk, baby food, yogurt, cereal. Obviously, a child exposed to such an egregious heaven suffers from elevated tooth decay level and obesity. Now compare that to the diet of remote Himalayan regions where boons of capitalistic world are at least not that well distributed and, probably, not that easily affordable. In conclusion, the author is right that dental care does not prevent from tooth decay. Other matters do so: such as dental hygiene and diet.