Eating disorder risk behavior and dental implications among adolescents.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the occurrence of tooth erosion (TE) and dental caries (DC) in adolescents with and without risk behavior for eating disorders (EDs).

METHOD: A controlled cross-sectional study involving 1,203 randomly selected female students aged 15-18 years was conducted in Brazil. Risk behavior for EDs was evaluated through the Bulimic Investigatory Test of Edinburgh and dental examinations were performed.

RESULTS

The prevalence of risk behavior for EDs was 6%. Twenty adolescents (1.7%) were identified with severe risk behavior for EDs and matched to 80 adolescents without such risk. Among the severe risk group, 45% of adolescents were affected by TE and 80% by DC compared with 8.8 and 51.3%, respectively, in the matched group. Adolescents with severe risk had higher chances for TE (OR = 10.04; 95% CI = 2.5-39.4).

DISCUSSION: In this study, a severe risk behavior for EDs was significantly associated with TE, but not with DC.