The association between obesity and dental caries among school children in Benghazi city: A secondary data analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity and caries in children are issues of public health concern. Even though research into the relationship between this two noncommunicable problems has been conducted for many years, to date the results remain equivocal. The aim of this paper was to examine the association between obesity and dental caries among 12-year-old Libyan school children. Methods and subjects: This study is a Secondary Data Analysis (SDA) of data collected as part of a cross-sectional survey conducted among 12-year-old school children in Benghazi city during the year 2017. The data was taken with the permission of the primary author on an excel file. In the light of the aims of the present study, the original dataset was checked for completeness of information. Incomplete data, in which the date of birth, height, or weight were missing, was removed. As a result, the study sample went down from 1,134 to 788. Statistical analysis using SPSS 25 software was conducted to compare caries and obesity, P value for all statistical tests was set at ≤0.05. Results: children who were in underweight had a lower number of decayed teeth and DMFT (0.84, SD=1.27 & 0.93, SD= 1.30, respectively) than normal weight and overweight/ obese children groups which have nearly equal average number of decayed teeth and DMFT (0.93, SD= 1.45 & 1.04, SD= 1.51, 0.94, SD=1.56 & 1.05, SD= 1.61, respectively). Conclusion: Evidence of an association between BMI and caries was inconsistent. The present study found that the average height, weight, BMI and age-adjusted Z score for BMI in caries free children were higher compared to children with dental caries, however, this difference was not statistically significant.