Diet, physical activity, and behavioural interventions for the treatment of overweight or obesity in children and adolescents.

Abstract

For the current issue of the Journal, we asked Drs. Laura Anderson and Geoff Ball to comment on and put into context three recent Cochrane Reviews on interventions for managing overweight and obese in children. Child overweight and obesity has increased globally, and can be associated with short- and long-term health consequences. The objective was to assess the effects of diet, physical activity, and behavioural interventions for the treatment of overweight or obesity in preschool children up to the age of 6 years. We performed a systematic literature search in the databases Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and LILACS, as well as in the trial registers ClinicalTrials.gov and ICTRP Search Portal. We also checked references of identified trials and systematic reviews. We applied no language restrictions. The date of the last search was March 2015 for all databases. We selected randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of diet, physical activity, and behavioural interventions for treating overweight or obesity in preschool children aged 0 to 6 years.