Re: Correlation between body mass index and orthodontic treatment outcome“: J. von Bremen; J. Wagner and S. Ruf. The Angle Orthodontist 2013;83:371–375
To: Editor, The Angle Orthodontist
I would like to congratulate the authors of the article entitled “Correlation between body mass index and orthodontic treatment outcome”, J. von Bremen, J. Wagner and S. Ruf.1 It raises some interesting issues regarding the interrelationship between BMI, patient cooperation, and quality of life, and how these affect orthodontic treatment. I did have a couple of questions/comments regarding this study:
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Patient cooperation is important for orthodontic treatment success. In this study, in both the normal BMI group (60% male, 40% female) and increased BMI group (69% male, 31% female) there were more males, but the proportion of males was even greater in the increased BMI group. Since we know that the level of cooperation is different between boys and girls,2 could this disproportion have affected the results found? Perhaps some of the lower cooperation seen in the increased BMI group could be attributed to that group having the highest proportion of boys.
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The authors stated that, in Germany, there was a correlation between low socioeconomic status and being overweight. They suggest that insufficient support from home could be a cause for the lack of compliance observed during orthodontic treatment. A questionnaire evaluating patients' quality of life could be a good way of being able to verify the psycho-emotional status of these patients.3 In that way, perhaps we could evaluate better how being overweight might interfere with orthodontic treatment, or affect quality of life issues.
Thank you for bringing this important issue to our attention.