Relationship between body mass index and dental development in a contemporary pediatric population in the United States

Purpose: To determine if there is a positive correlation between increased body mass index (BMI) and dental development in children. Methods: The records of 500 six- to 13-year-old children were reviewed, and 250 were included in the study. BMI was calculated for each patient. Panoramic radiographs were evaluated, and dental age was estimated using Cameriere’s formula. Delta values (dental age, chronological age) were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. All tests of hypotheses were two-sided at an alpha level of 0.05. Results: A statistically significant difference in delta was observed among different BMI categories (P<0.001). Larger deltas were observed for obese patients compared to normal weight patients (P=0.027) and underweight patients (P=0.012). Prepubertal patients were observed to have larger deltas than pubertal patients (P<0.001). Differences between sexes were not significant (P=0.930). Conclusion: Obese children were more advanced dentally than normal or underweight children. Older children were more dentally advanced than their chronological age when compared to younger children. As children grew older, the difference between dental age and chronological age decreased.