Dental Caries Status and Dietary Characteristics During the Covid-19 Pandemic Towards Increased Risk of Stunting among Preschool Children

Abstract

Preschool children were highly at risk to be stunted as a result of decreasing chewing hard foods characterized by high dental caries and unhealthy food intake due to the rapid impoverishment of families by the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, recent few studies present contradictory results. This study aimed to determine dental caries as a risk factor on the stunting occurrence after being controlled by dietary characteristics during the Covid-19 Pandemic. A nested case-control study was conducted from August to September 2021. 62 of 295 children who were registered in the birth cohort born from January 2016 to December 2016, were obtained by purposive sampling and then, divided into two groups, i.e., 31 were in the stunting group and the other 31 normal children were in the case group. High dental caries status is significantly associated with stunting occurrence (COR = 21; 95% CI, 0.80–156.20). High dental caries shows as a significant risk factor on stunting occurrence in multivariable logistic regression test (AOR = 37.50; 95% CI, 6.97 – 201.76). Dental caries is a dominant risk factor that increases the risk of stunting and it is confounded by less protein intake