Objective: Although multiple studies have highlighted the influence of body mass index (BMI) on the emergence of the dentition, controversies still exist in the body of literature. The purpose of this research was to determine if the categories of body
mass percentile have significant predictive effects on dental emergence staging of pre-orthodontic children and adolescents.
Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, comprising of 424 participants (186 males and 238 females) ages 4 to 15 years. Dental emergence was classified using the Bjork criteria while BMI was used to categorize the body mass percentile using the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) criteria for gender-based BMI-for-age growth chart for 2–20 years. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the mean BMI of the different categories of BMI-percentile in the dentition stages among males and females. Spearman correlation was used to determine the association between body mass percentile and the dentition stages
while multinomial logistic regression was thereafter used to ascertain if the body mass percentile had any effect on developmental staging of the dentition. The statistical significance level was set at p<0.05.
Results: The category of BMI-percentile significantly predicts the stage of the deciduous dentition and the permanent dentition excluding the permanent molars (p=0.005). Underweight participants were more likely to have delayed dental developmental
stage compared to overweight participants who were more likely in the advanced late mixed and adolescent dentition stages with greater odds of 0.788 and 0.501 respectively. The category of the BMI-percentile was not a significant predictor of
the permanent molars’ dentition (p=0.463).
Conclusion: Orthodontists and pedodontists could consider the body mass of patients to determine the timing of commencement of intervention.