Abstract
Child and adolescent overweight is a growing public health problem globally. Europe and low and middle-income (LMIC) countries in Sub-Saharan Africa provide sufficiently suitable populations to learn from with respect to the potential for mobile health (mHealth) interventions in this area of research. The aim of this paper is to identify mHealth interventions on prevention and treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Sweden and report on their effects, in order to inform future research in this area. A search of peer-reviewed publications was performed using PubMed, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost, and Scopus. The search included all articles published up to August 2019. The search strings consisted of MeSH terms related to mHealth, overweight or obesity, children, adolescents or youth and individual countries in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, a combination of free-text words; mobile phone, physical activity, exercise, diet, weight, BMI, and healthy eating was also used. Seven studies were reported from Europe and no eligible studies from Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of this narrative review indicate a lack of research in the development and testing of mHealth interventions for childhood and adolescent obesity. There is a need for an evidence base of mHealth interventions that are both relevant and appropriate in order to stem the epidemic of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in these countries. Uptake of such interventions is likely to be high as there is high penetrance of mobile phone technology amongst adolescents, even within poor communities in Africa.
Highlights
Over the past 20 years overweight and obesity has emerged as a serious nutritional and public health problem worldwide [1]
From the seven studies yielded for Europe, six studies looked at adolescents improving their lifestyle through diet and/or physical activity interventions
The MINISTOP (Mobile-Based Intervention Intended to Stop Obesity in Preschoolers) intervention was the core mobile health (mHealth) intervention used in the Swedish study found [63]
Summary
Over the past 20 years overweight and obesity has emerged as a serious nutritional and public health problem worldwide [1]. In 2016, 39% of adults aged 18 years and older were overweight and 13% were obese. The overweight and obesity prevalence in 5–19-year olds has increased dramatically from 4% in 1975 to more than 18% in 2016 [2]. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are recognized as the blueprint to address daily societal challenges, which include poverty, inequality, peace, and issues relating to the environment and sustainable resources. SDG 2 focuses on ending malnutrition and improving health and nutrition in both children and adults [3]. The global overweight prevalence for children under age five is 6.1%. SDG 2 has a target to eliminate childhood overweight and obesity by the year 2030 [4]
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