The Relationship between Body Mass Index and Dental Caries in Children Aged 6 to 10 Years Old in Rafsanjan

Abstract

Introduction: Dental caries is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases that have a profound impact on the health of both the individual and community health. The present study aimed to assess the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and dental caries in Rafsanjan children aged 6-10 years in 2019. Materials & Methods: This study is a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship between body mass index and dental caries in 215 male and female students (6-10 years old), selected by simple random sampling in four groups: slim, normal BMI, overweight, and obese the relationship between BMI and DMFT / dmft had been determined by Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests and Spearman correlation coefficient. Results: There was a significant inverse relationship between dmft index and children's body mass index (p value < 0.001, r = -0.315). There was no significant difference between the mean DMFT index between lean, normal weight, overweight and obese children (p value = 0.205) Conclusion: The dmft index decreased with increasing BMI, and there was no significant relationship between DMFT index and BMI.