Oral hygiene and gingival health among overweight Iraqi school-age children : clinical comparative study

Abstract EN

Background : The impact of obesity on general human health status has been studied extensively in modern literature as it found to be related to most systemic disease including cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic and other diseases.

On the other hand, studies have found a strong association between obesity and various clinical and pathological aspects of periodontal disease, but most of these studies were directed toward adult age group only without inclusion of younger age groups.

This matter calls for more researches to be directed toward these age groups.

This research was conducted to provide a baseline data that hopefully fill the gap of shortage of knowledge in this vital subject.

Material and method : The sample of this research was consists of 180 children (90 girls and 90 boys) with age range (6 –12).For each gender and according to their percentile ranking, the children were allocated into three subgroups (healthy weight, at risk of overweight and overweight).

Each group was consists of (30) children.

All of children were examined for Plaque Index (PLI), and bleeding on probing index (BOP).

Results : Greater values for PLI were recorded for children in overweight groups (1.36 for girls and 1.51 for boys) in comparison to those in healthy (0.85 for girls and 0.98 for boys) and at risk (1.07 for girls and 1.91 for boys) groups.

Greater values for BOP were also recorded for children in overweight groups (0.43 for girls and 0.67 for boys) in comparison to those in healthy (0.11 for girls and 0.13 for boys) and at risk (0.42 for girls and 0.35 for boys) groups.

According to paired sample t-test, most of these differences were found to be statistically highly significant.

Non significant differences were recorded between different study groups on gender basis.

Conclusion : This research has documents the relation of obesity to periodontal health in children regardless of their genders, but more studies to explore different aspects of this relation still required.