Oral health in relation to nutritional status, age and sex among 14-18 years children of Naraingarh, Haryana

Krishan Sharma,Harvinder Kaur

doi:10.14295/bds.2015.v18i3.1127

Abstract

Objective: To describe prevalence dental caries and to study the association between nutritional status and oral health based on various indices among adolescents from under privileged communities. Material and Methods: The study was based on a cross-sectional sample of 196 apparently healthy children (104 males and 92 females) in the age range of 14 to 18 years belonging to under-privileged communities. Each subject was measured for height, body weight to assess nutritional status and clinically observed for various oral health traits like dental caries, plaque, calculus and gingivitis. Results: Decayed, missing due to caries and filled teeth (DMF) index was low among adolescent children; it was 0.48 in males and 0.93 in females. Prevalence of calculus was higher among females through all age groups, while prevalence of plaque was higher among males. Sex differences were significant only for plaque index and DMF index. The inadequacy of nutrition was not a major determinant for the observed magnitude of soft deposits, plaque and calculus indices except for Oral health status index and DMF index where higher magnitude of the indices were observed in underweight children than the normal. Conclusion: The inadequate nutritional status was not a major determinant of oral health indicating the general awareness of oral hygiene and its observance was a major factor. Females were more prone to dental caries than the males and the severity was also significantly higher in the former. KeywordsOral health; Nutritional status; BMI-for-age Z-scores; Periodontal health indices; Adolescence

Highlights

Dental ecology refers to interactions between dentition and environment factors to which it is exposed
Oral health is a gateway to body health of an individual and is affected by a host of factors like dental crowding, spacing, facial morphology, diet, life style factors, oral hygiene and oral habits [2]
Dental caries and other oral diseases are common in human populations and so the populations of North India [3]

Summary

Introduction

Dental ecology refers to interactions between dentition and environment factors to which it is exposed. These interactions result in a long list of consequences having applications in pathology, human growth, development and maturation, environmental science and forensics (reviewed in Cuozzo and Sauther 2012) [1]. Oral health is a gateway to body health of an individual and is affected by a host of factors like dental crowding, spacing, facial morphology, diet, life style factors, oral hygiene and oral habits [2]. The prevalence of dental caries is declining in most of the countries due to improvement in dental hygiene, but there are contrarian reports of marked increased prevalence of dental caries due to human migrations and changes in life style [6]. WHO (2001) data [7] show that the mean number of decayed, missing or filled permanent teeth (DMFT) at age 12 years in low-income countries is 1.9, 3.3 in middle-income countries and 2.1 in high-income countries

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion