The Relevance among Dietary Habits, Body Mass Index and Oral Disease Symptom Experiences of Korean High School Students-Focusing on the 15th Online Youth Health Behavior Survey in 2019

Abstract

Objectives: This study was to survey the distribution of Korean high school students’ dietary habits, body mass index (BMI) and oral symptom experiences and analyze the relevance of those to contribute to the development of a program to prevent and manage their oral diseases.Methods: The analysis was based on the raw data of the 15th Online Youth Health Behavior Survey in 2019 and the subjects were 27,919 high school students which went under complex sample analysis.Results: In the dietary habits of the subjects, the highest were ‘once or twice a week’ with 33.8% in recent 7 days’ fruit intake frequency, 42.9% of ‘once or twice a week’ in soda intake frequency, 35.8% of ‘once or twice a week’ in sweet drinks frequency, and 56.1% of ‘once or twice a week’ in fast food frequency. BMI showed the highest 52.9% of ‘normal’, 19.5% of ‘obesity’, 14.1% of ‘overweight’, and 13.5% of ‘underweight’ in order. In the recent 12-month experience of oral disease symptoms, the highest was 39.2% of ‘none’ with 25.4% of ‘one’, 18.0% of ‘more than three’, and 17.4% of ‘two’ in order. In the affecting factors on BMI ‘3 or 4 times a week’ in soda, ‘once or twice a week’ in sweet drinks were significantly high and ‘3 or 4 times a week’ were significantly low in vegetable intake (p< 0.05). The affecting factors on oral disease symptoms were significantly lower with male than female, and those on academic achievements and economic status were significantly lower in ‘mid’ than in ‘low’ (p< 0.01). ‘Once or twice a week’ soda intake and less sweet drinks and fast food were significantly low (p< 0.01). Less vegetable intake showed significantly higher (p< 0.01), and there were no significant relevance between BMI and oral disease symptoms.Conclusions: It is suggested that a program be developed as soon as possible for preventing and managing oral diseases for adolescents to grow up to be healthy adults in terms of surveying characteristic distribution of dietary habits, BMI and oral disease symptoms and analyzing the relevance among them efficiently.