Impact of problematic eating behaviour and parental feeding styles on early childhood caries.

Background: Eating behaviour in childhood has been implicated in development of early childhood caries. Parenting feeding styles can also contribute to development of various eating behaviours.

Aim: To evaluate relationship between children's eating behaviour and parental feeding styles with ECC in preschool children.

Design: A case-control study was conducted in 440 children who were selected and divided into 2 groups: Group A-children with ECC and Group B-children without ECC. Dental caries was recorded using dmft index. The parents of children in both groups were requested to complete the Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) and Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire (PFQ).

Results: There was positive association of food avoidance subscales of CEBQ (Satiety Responsiveness, Food Fussiness, Slowness in Eating, and Emotional Undereating) along with certain food-approaching subscales (Desire to Drink and Emotional Overeating) with dental caries status. It was also seen that parental feeding patterns such as Encouragement and Instrumental feeding contributed to decrease in dental caries of the child when compared to Control and Emotional feeding.

Conclusion: Certain eating and feeding behaviours can possibly be associated with development of ECC, such behaviours can be successfully identified using CEBQ and PFQ.