Central Annals of Public Health and Research Cite this article: Lakhanpal M, Chopra A, Rao NC, Gupta N, Vashisth S (2014) Dietary Pattern, Tooth Brushing Habits and Caries Experience of School Children in Panchkula District, India. Ann Public Health Res 1(1): 1001. Corresponding author Ma na v La kha np a l, De p a rtme nt o f Pub lic He a lth De ntistry, Swa mi De vi Dya l Ho sp ita l & De nta l C o lle g e , G o lp ura , Ba rwa la , Distric t. Pa nc hkula , Ha rya na , Ind ia , Ema il: Submitte d: 23 January 2014 Accepted: 07 Fe b rua ry 2014 Publishe d: 10 Fe b rua ry 2014 Copyright © 2014 La kha np a l e t a l. OPEN ACCESS Ke ywo rds • NMES fo o d a nd d rinks • Die t • De nta l c a rie s • To o th b rushing Research Article Dietary Pattern, Tooth Brushing Habits and Caries Experience of School Children in Panchkula District, India Manav Lakhanpal*, Amandeep Chopra, NC Rao, Nidhi Gupta, and Shelja Vashisth Department of Public Health Dentistry, Swami Devi Dyal Hospital & Dental College, India Abstract Aims and objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the original dietary pattern, tooth brushing habit and oral health of the school children of India in 2013. Material and methods: This study was conducted in different Government and Non Government School’s of Panchkula, Haryana, India in 2013. The original sample consisted of 296 children between 10-15 years age groups. A Performa was prepared to collect the data about the oral health status of the subjects and NMES food consumption by the subjects. The samples were examined using a plane mouth mirror and CPI probe where necessary according to WHO caries diagnostic criteria (World Health Organization, 1993). To record the caries experience decayed, missing, flled (DMF) caries index was used. ANOVA, Chi square and Multiple Regression Analysis were done by using SPSS software. Results: A signifcant relationship was found between caries and NMES food or drinks, bed time NMES consumption frequency. It shows that caries experience tend to increase with consumption of NMES food and drinks. Signifcantly less caries was associated with the reported moderate consumption of dairy products by the children but this association as only for frequency less than 2 times daily. Multiple Regression Analysis revealed that the best predictors for DMFT scores were dairy products consumption frequency, which provided a variance of 24.8% in DMFT. Conclusion: The reported consumption of NMES food; drinks and lack of regular tooth brushing were found to be the factors most strongly linked to caries. INTRODUCTION Dental caries has been called as scourge of modern civilization and is without doubt, one of mankind’s most prevalent chronic diseases. Dental caries is most commonly seen oral disease showing striking geographic variation, socio economic patterns and severity of distribution all over the world [1,2]. There is abundant evidence that dietary patterns in children have an influence on caries experience [3] while much of this evidence is from cross sections studies, it is recognized that caries takes time to develop and caries status of an individual may reflect the dietary pattern at an earlier age. The lack of a substantial body of published studies relating early dietary pattern with the subsequent development of caries reflects the difficulty in conducting such longitudinal studies. Utilizing data collected by numerous investigators, Circa 1959, Buttner [4] determined the relation between sugar intake and caries for 11 -12 year old children. He concluded that there was a positive relation between these two varieties. In the current literature sugar consumption has been implicated as one of major contributors to dental caries [5]. Consumption of sugar containing foods is believed to be on the increase in developing countries particularly among urban residents from higher socio-economic background [6].It has been suggested that variation in dietary and oral hygiene habits might account for the social and regional distribution of caries experience in Ghanian school children [6]. During these two decades largely as a result of WHO activities in oral epidemiology [7], comparable data on the prevalence of