Introduction
Childhood obesity refers to a child’s condition with too much body fat that becomes disadvantageous to the body’s health. Obesity, in general, is regarded as a significant public health concern, as illustrated by the Centre for Disease Control. A prior recommendation is that people be aware of their food and integrate education related to eating behaviors. Therefore, this essay will outline a summary report analyzing the systematic review and additional recommendations from the review.
The Systematic Review of Childhood Obesity
Liu et al. (2019) carried out a test involving school-based interventions addressing childhood obesity issues. The systematic review intends to provide adequate alternatives for combating child obesity issues by relying on school-based interventions. The study’s hypothesis is to assess whether school-based interventions are an effective tool for preventing childhood obesity. However, the study heavily relied on data retrieved from nutritional research studies from electronic databases. The main focus of the research articles was on the cluster randomized-controlled trials of the interventions for a specified timeline between the years 1990 to 2020 (Liu et al., 2019). The three electronic databases are the source of data, including Embase, Medline, and Central. Subdivided the data based on subgroups and meta-analyses to determine the effectiveness of preventing obesity among children. The data were statistically analyzed in subgroup and meta-analysis to provide the most effective results. The gauging components were the research participants’ body mass index and body mass index Z-score.
Based on the statistical analysis findings, the authors found significant differences between the single-component intervention and the multi-component intervention based on the results obtained in the body mass index and body mass index z-score (Liu et al., 2019). The single component showcased slight improvement in terms of reduction of BMI score. However, the multi-component illustrated a significantly more significant reduction in the BMI score. The hypothesis was supported in both single-component and multi-component cases as they contribute to the prevention of childhood obesity.
Moreover, the author highlighted limitations that might hamper the single-component intervention: a lack of enjoyment in their physical activity sessions. The second limitation is that the study was only restricted to three electronic databases (Liu et al., 2019). Thirdly, the sole reliance on the body mass index as a measure limits the research coverage. Reliance on the random controlled trials provides little evidence concerning behavioral outcomes. The last limitation is inconsistent reporting due to the difficulty posed by some interventions. Further research will require using behavioral outcomes as a variable to further illustrate the correlations between the effectiveness in preventing childhood obesity. Thus, the findings revealed that integrating intervention programs in schools is the most efficient in combating cases of childhood obesity among students. However, the single component, mainly physical activity sessions, may be adjusted to ensure that the students enjoy the sessions.
In analyzing the implications, we find it essential that people be aware of their food and the consequences of consuming certain foods. Thus, integrating measures that will aid in preventing childhood obesity, such as educating people, school-based programs geared to prevent childhood obesity, and Parental interventions. The measures will be an effective way to curb the public health issue in the country.
The additional recommendations as per the systematic review analysis would be the integration of school-based and home-based programs to contribute to the massive prevention of childhood obesity. However, the measure will require collaborative efforts between the parents, teachers, and students. Some of the measures will require the willingness of the children who are undertaking the interventions to prevent the condition so that they become successful.
The ethical considerations of the research study are based on two principles: autonomy and beneficence. Thus, the parents and teachers exercise the principle of autonomy, whereby they have the right to make their decisions based on their beliefs and values to protect the interests of their children. The principle of beneficence was also applied as per the fifty trials in all the fifty-six publications drawn from the three electronic databases revealed that the research participants, who were the students were free to make their own choices. However, the parents have the rights and responsibility to ensure that they also make efforts to initiate family-based interventions to protect their children, as childhood obesity is regarded as child neglect. Child neglect is punishable whereby the parents might be imprisoned, and the child was taken away from their care.
Conclusion
Overall, school-based interventions play a significant role in preventing obesity among students. The most effective additional recommendation is the integration of school-based interventions in schools to reduce the cases related to the high number of children with obesity. Thus federal and state governments might offer resources to schools that will assist in implementing the interventions. In collaboration with public health organizations, school administrators have a huge role in combating public health issues by integrating school-based interventions into school activity schedules.
References
Liu, Z., Xu, H., Wen, L., Peng, Y., Lin, L., Zhou, S., Li, W., & Wang, H. (2019). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the overall effects of school-based obesity prevention interventions and effect differences by intervention components. BioMed Central.