Effectiveness of school-based intervention programs in reducing prevalence of overweight

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of school-based interventions program in reducing the prevalence of overweight or obesity among schoolchildren. Data source: Ovid Medline (1950-December 2012), Embase (1980-2012), CINAHL (1982-2012), secondary references, review articles, and expert in the field. Study selection: All published clinical trials were eligible for study if were randomized, methodologically strong-based on a validity assessment, aimed to evaluate a school-based intervention for childhood overweight or obesity, and measured outcome in term of prevalence/incidence difference in overweight and obesity among both groups. Studies involved in cost-effective analysis of school-based intervention have been excluded. Data from eligible studies abstracted and pooled for relative risk. Results: Five trials with 3,904 schoolchildren were included. Mean age of the students (boys and girls) ranges 8.6-12.6 years. Meta-analysis showed a statistical significance beneficial effect of school-based intervention programs on obesity status of schoolchildren (risk ratio (RR) 0.58, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.43-0.78) and suggested 42% reduction in prevalence of obesity among schoolchildren through school-based intervention programs. Individual studies also showed effectiveness of these school-based interventions. Conclusion: School-based intervention programs are effective in prevention of childhood overweight and obesity problem and our results quantitatively supported this argument.