Relationship Between Body Mass Index, Caries Experience and Dietary Preferences in Children

Unlabelled: Dental caries and childhood obesity epidemics are multifactorial complex disease and children's dietary pattern is a common underlying etiologic factor in their causation.

Materials: Five hundred children belonging to the age group of 8-12 years of both sexes were studied. In all of them BMI, dietary preferences to sweet and fatty food snacks and caries experience was determined. The results were subjected to statistical analysis using prevalence test, ANOVA test and chi-square test.

Results: We found that children with obesity and overweight had increased prevalence of dental caries in both primary and permanent dentition compared to normal weight children, which was statistically significant. In addition obese and overweight children had frequent preference to sweet and fatty food snacks compared to children with normal weight.