Sugar intake and early childhood caries in Cali, Colombia

Lina María Villegas Trujillo

Universidad del Valle

Judy Elena Villavicencio Flórez

Universidad del Valle

Fanny Rios

Universidad del Valle

Adolfo Contreras Rengifo

Universidad del Valle

Background: The correlation between early childhood caries (ecc) and the consumption of sugar in foods and beverages in children has not yet been reported in Colombia.

Objective: To investigate ecc prevalence and consumption of sugar in foods at day-care pre-schoolers.

Design: A descriptive study was conducted with 124 children aged 3-4 years old attending three state funded childcare centres on weekdays and their feeding habits were recorded during 3 months and extrapolated to 1 year. The children ate an institutional determined menu at breakfast, lunch and two in between meals according to guidelines of the “Governmental Day Care Institution” that daily measure calories and classify food groups. After leaving the day-care premises and during the weekends, children feeding was a parenthood responsibility and by questionnaire, mother’s interview and programmed home visit, the dietary habits of children during the weekends was established. The International Caries Detection and Assessment System investigated ECC prevalence

Results: Estimated sugar consumption of children per year was 52.20 kg which is high above of who recommendation. Even though there is an increase of eating unhealthy food and beverage intake during weekends, the amount of sugar intake during weekdays was also high and both associates with increased dmft index. Night-time feeding bottle was also associated with ecc. Toothbrush for dental plaque control of those children was also unfair.

Conclusion: Excessive sugar intake and unfair toothbrush are important risk factor for ecc amongst Colombian young children. Colombia needs to develop and implement more strict nutritional policies to reduce children’s sugar consumption, and to improve efficient and regular dental plaque control at day-care institutions and at home, to reduce ecc prevalence.

Keywords: Caries Risk, Sugar Intake, Children, Early Childhood Caries

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Published
2019-12-29
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https://plu.mx/plum/a/?doi=10.16925/2357-4607.2019.02.11