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영어

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between obesity and dental caries in children and adolescents. This study was analyzed by searching the following words in Google Scholar (https:// scholar.google.co.kr), Kiss (kiss.kstudy.com), KCI (www.kci.go.kr), and RISS (riss.kr): “pediatric,” “juvenile,” “obesity,” and “dental caries.” A total of 19 Korean and 10 foreign studies out of 107 studies were selected after excluding the studies based on the exclusion criteria. When evaluating the relationship between childhood and adolescent obesity and dental caries, 16 out of 29 articles (55.2%) indicated a significant relationship, and 2 (6.9%) indicated different results based on sex, while 13 articles (44.8%) showed no significant relationship between obesity and dental caries. Among the significant studies, a total of 10 (34.5%) showed that the number of dental caries increased according to an increase in obesity, i.e., from normal to overweight to obese. A total of 5 studies (17.2%) reported that the number of dental caries increased in underweight individuals compared to those of normal weight, or decreased according to an increase in obesity, while 1 study (3.4%) indicated that the number of dental caries increased in both the underweight and obese groups compared to the normal weight group. Therefore, studies on the relationship between dental caries and the degree of obesity in children and adolescents have not shown a certain trend.