author = {Das, Abhishek. and Agarwala, Payel. and Kar, Sudipta. and Kundu, Gautam.}, title = {{Influence of food pouching habit during television and multimedia device viewing on dental caries: A cross-sectional study}}, journal ={International Journal of Health & Allied Sciences}, volume ={9}, number ={3}, pages = {258-261}, doi = {10.4103/ijhas.IJHAS_98_19}, year = {2020}, abstract ={ BACKGROUND: Television and multimedia device viewing has been implicated as a possible risk factor for dental caries. AIMS: The aim was to find out the correlation of dental caries with increased duration of food chewing habits during screen viewing. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Closed-ended, validated questionnaires were asked from parents of children, followed by an oral examination and calculation of the dmft values of children. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional study was carried out in various schools of Kolkata, where 3–6-year-old 419 participants were selected by a simple random sampling method. Statistical Analysis Used: The statistical software IBM SPSS statistics 20.0 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA) was used for the analyses of the data. RESULTS: Children who watch screens during mealtime and snack time, obtained dmft score was 5.91 ± 4.224 compared to those who do not watch screens, the dmft score was 2.47 ± 2.551. The dmft score among the children who watch various screens for <30 min (N = 242), 30–60 min (N = 143), and >60 min (N = 34) were 3.38 ± 3.228, 6.49 ± 4.182, and 9.53 ± 3.768, respectively. The P value was <0.001 in all of the comparisons (statistically highly significant result). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that prolonged eating time during screen usage is detrimental for oral health and the cause of increased dmft. }, URL ={https://www.ijhas.in/article.asp?issn=2278-344X;year=2020;volume=9;issue=3;spage=258;epage=261;aulast=Das;t=6}, eprint ={https://www.ijhas.in/article.asp?issn=2278-344X;year=2020;volume=9;issue=3;spage=258;epage=261;aulast=Das;t=6} }