title: Early childhood caries underweight or overweight, that is the question.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this retrospective case study is to describe the body mass index in a group of children, from 3  to 6 years old with ECC and a similar group of caries-free children.
  
  
  METHODS
  This case-control analysis  involves two groups of children: the first was of 244 healthy children, 3 to 6 year-old and caries-free; the second was of 586  otherwise healthy children, same age, with Early Childhood Caries divided into three subgroups according the AAPD  definition. Demographics, dmft, number teeth with pulpal involvement, BMI percentile, weight at birth, weight and height of  both parents were measured during the clinical evaluation. Statistical analyses were performed using standard statistical  software (SPSS Version 13). BMI distribution of the subjects with caries was graphically compared with the use of confidence  intervals to a similar caries-free sample.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results are expressed as mean ± SD and frequencies  (percentages), depending on the data type. The distribution of  BMI percentiles of the ECC group was: underweight  =   10%; normal  weight = 55.90%; at risk of overweight = 22.22 %; overweight = 11.11%. Significantly,  more children in the case group were underweight than in the control group (10% vs. 4.94%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The ECC population does not have a typical weight distribution, and the underweight finding in a significant number of  Severe ECC  (S-ECC) children may be due to the chewing alteration related to the dental pain due to caries and to missing  teeth after hard tissues breakdown.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vania
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Parisella
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Capasso
authors.forename: G L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Di Tanna
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vestri
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Polimeni
mesh_terms: D001724:Birth Weight; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000150:complications; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D050177:Overweight / Q000150:complications; D010290:Parents; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013851:Thinness / Q000150:complications