Such a broad result supports the contention that future strategies to prevent early childhood caries should focus primarily
on preventing their initiation rather than on controlling their severity (32). Changing eating behavior is difficult, involving acceptance on the part of the child (26). Parental attitudes and beliefs regarding diet, which have been recently shown to
be closely related with caries increment in early childhood, may also represent an important barrier(33). The essence of the current intervention, an intensive face-to-face counseling during the first year of life, was to create healthy dietary practices from the beginning, as opposed to trying to modify unhealthy ones later.
This fact may have played an important role in its success.