Aims: Assess selected measures of oral health: Enamel defect, eruption of permanent teeth, dental caries, investigate the nutritional status of orphans by physical examination and relate the nutritional status with measures of oral health.
Materials and methods: 192 orphans aged of 6 and 12 who were living in all orphanages in Baghdad, Iraq, were studied. Enamel defect was derived from the WHO's modified developmental defects of enamel (DDE) index, investigation of caries using Decay -Missing – Filled index for permanent teeth (DMF), the decay-missing filled index for primary teeth (dmf) index and all of the permanent teeth were inspected for eruptive stage. According to Body Mass Index (BMI) for age, subjects 's visits and birthday dates were recorded as day\month\year and measuring height in cm and weight in Kg then transfer data to BMI excel calculator.
Results: The prevalence of enamel defect was low in the sample, fully erupted teeth had high prevalence among Orphans (more than 9 years old), there was high percentage of caries among the Orphans, it was found that the highest percentage of the sample was normal in weight.
Conclusion: Enamel defect was higher among normal weight then over _weight children, the mean value of permanent teeth eruption increased with the increasing of BMI for age, there was high caries prevalence among the Orphans.
