Relation between oral affections and nutritional state in primary school children from Bauta municipality

Abstract

Nutrition is an essential requisite of the human condition. Its affection generates an energy-protein malnutrition that is accompanied with diverse clinical manifestations, intensity degrees and evolutivity, which give it the character of syndromic complex. Taking into account the repercussion on the general physical development of the child, as well as the importance of an adequate development of the stomatognathic apparatus during the first years of life, we proposed ourselves to determine the relation existing between the nutritional state and the main oral affections. To this end, a study of 52 primary school children selected according to a study previously conducted by General Comprehensive Medicine was conducted. Of them, 26 were normoweight and 26 had nutritional disorders. Of the latter, 14 were slim and 12 were low weight. Children were examined to the natural light in their schools. The variables analyzed were age, nutritional state, the coe-d and COP indices, the presence of malocclusions and the PMA index. The coe-d and COP indices were elevated in children with nutritional disorders (coe-d 1,50 y COP 0,66), whereas in the normoweight they were 0.73 and 0.53 for coe-d and COP, respectively. It was observed a high prevalence of malocclusions in the low weight with 66,6 %, 46,15 % in the normoweight and an elevated percentage of gingivitis in slim children and in low weight (14.28 and 16.66, respectively). In the normoweight it was 23.07.