The relationship among food, nutritional status and oral condition is not yet well established, many times presenting controversial versions and limited knowledge. There seems to be an agreement that eating, and consequently, the nutritional status, may have a certain amount of influence over present and future oral conditions of the child. The objective of this communication is to discuss possible relations among food, nutritional status and oral condition in the child. Nutritional status may affect the teeth during their formation period and after eruption in the oral cavity. Systemic effects of nutrition may alter the development of teeth, quantity and quality of saliva, and the external effect may also determine a bigger prevalence of dental cavities, since both the quantity and the frequency of saccharose ingestion are important factors involved in their etiology. The reflections contained in this paper suggest that interdisciplinary actions are necessary in order to obtain results in the prevention and treatment of oral diseases.
feeding; dental caries; child; nutritional status