Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This is an update of a Cochrane review published first in , and updated previously in However, the update has now been split into six reviews addressing different childhood obesity treatments at different ages.
We checked references of studies and systematic reviews. We did not apply any language restrictions. The date of the last search was July for all databases. We excluded interventions that specifically dealt with the treatment of eating disorders or type 2 diabetes, or included participants with a secondary or syndromic cause of obesity. Two review authors independently screened references, extracted data, assessed risk of bias, and evaluated the quality of the evidence using the GRADE instrument.
We contacted study authors for additional information. We included 70 RCTs with a total of participants randomised to either the intervention or control groups. The number of participants per trial ranged from 16 to Ten trials had more than two arms. The overall quality of the evidence was low or very low and 62 trials had a high risk of bias for at least one criterion.
Total duration of trials ranged from six months to three years. The median age of participants was 10 years old and the median BMI z score was 2.
In two trials reporting on minutes per day of TV viewing, a small reduction of 6. No subgroup effects were shown for any of the subgroups on any of the outcomes. The evidence suggests a very low occurrence of adverse events. The quality of the evidence was low or very low. The heterogeneity observed across all outcomes was not explained by subgrouping. Diet, physical activity and behavioural interventions for the treatment of overweight or obese children from the age of 6 to 11 years.
