Nutritional status and Dental caries experience of school children Lucknow, India

Background: Malnutrition acts as a double edged sword which is detrimental to the oral health and disease. The objective was to assess the nutritional status and dental caries experience among 12-15 year old school going children of Lucknow, India. Methods: A cross sectional study with multistage cluster sampling was done to select a sample of 600 children (55.5% were males) aged 12 to 15 year old, attending public schools in Lucknow, India. Nutritional status was assessed by anthropometric measures like height for age, weight for age and body mass index (BMI). The dental caries experiences were determined using the Decayed, Missing and Filled Teeth (DMFT) Index. The other co-variants like socioeconomic status (parents), dietary patterns, oral habits and oral hygiene practices related informations were obtained using pre-designed structured interview. SPSS version 12 was used for statistical analysis. Pearson’s coefficient test was used to find the co-relation between the malnutrition and dental caries. Results- The mean BMI of males and females were 16.1±1.9 and 17.3±2.1 respectively. Nutritional status demonstrated, about 90.1% and 9.3% of school going boys were underweight and normal weight respectively where it was 74.53% and 23.6 % for girls.  The mean DMFT among male (0.88±1.32) subjects is significantly higher than in female subjects (0.69±0.92).  Dental caries was found in all permanent teeth among the children of underweight (47 %) and normal (28%) according to their BMI-for age status. A positive co-relation(r=+0.09) between DMFT and BMI among girls and a negative co-relation among boys (r=-0.11) were observed. Conclusion –Malnutrition (under nutrition) was a predisposing risk factor to the occurrence of dental caries in this population.