Relationship Between Dental Caries, Tooth Brushing, and Dietary Habits in Nursery School Children

Abstract

This study was undertaken to find the effect on dental caries of two factors, daily tooth brushing and dietary habits. Caries experience and dental plaque of 1, 842 children, 1 to 6 years old, attending nursery schools in Sendai, were examined. The correlation between dental findings and two habits, which were estimated by a questionnaire survey (Fig. 1), was statistically analyzed.
The following results were obtained.
1. The children who had unfavourable dietary habits such as poor appetite, unbalanced diet, eating at bedtime, and much time consumed in between-meal eating gradually increased in number with age from 1 to 6 years (Tables 2, 3, 5, 6).
2. The children with unfavourable dietary habits had a higher mean deft than those who had good habits and the differences were often statistically significant (Tables 3-6).
3. In studying the effect on dental caries by the combination of dietary and daily tooth brushing habits, it was assumed that the caries prevalence was mainly influenced by dietary habits irrespective of daily tooth brushing (Tables 7-9).
4. The mean Debris Index (DI) score on the upper anteriors of the children with favourable dietary habits was lower than that of the children with unfavourable dietary habits (Tables 10, 11). However, in examining the effect on dental plaque of daily tooth brushing, the mean DI score of the children who brushed once or more daily was statistically significantly lower than that of the children who brushed less than once daily or not at all, regardless of dietary habits (Tables 12, 13).