Obesity and Dental Caries Public Health Problems in a School Population

María del Pilar Adriano Anaya; Tomás Caudillo Joya; María Lilia Adriana Juárez López & Pilar Alejandra Caudillo Adriano

Summary

Several studies have proposed obesity as a risk factor for the development of dental caries, but the literature has shown conflicting results, so further research is needed on the association of these two problems which are considered health public. The objective of this study was to identify the association between body mass index (BMI) and dental caries in schoolchildren aged six to twelve years of 19 public elementary schools located in the twelve villages in the Milpa Alta delegation is organized in the Federal District (Mexico). The study was descriptive, comparative and transversal, with a convenience sample of 4734 students who took the written consent, informed consent from parents or guardians. Overweight was measured using the BMI and dental caries CPOD indicator. The information is captured in the Software SPSS version 15.0. Of the total 9.3% of school started off low weight percentile with an average of 1.9 decayed teeth. 50.4% within the normal with 2.5 decayed teeth, 19.6% overweight and 2.6 teeth with a history of dental caries, 11.1% obese and 3.2 decayed teeth and 9.5% with endogenous obesity and 2.9 teeth with dental caries. It is important to study the possible association between dental caries and obesity as they have a common risk, nutrition.

KEY WORDS: obesity, overweight, dental caries, body mass index.

How to cite this article

ADRIANO, A. M. P.; CAUDILLO, J. T.; JUÁREZ, L. M. L. A.& CAUDILLO, A. P. A. Obesity and dental caries public health problems in a school population. Int. J. Odontostomat., 8(3):475-480, 2014.