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Young Children playing in a park

Carolyn Summerbell from our department is Senior lead author in two new reviews on Interventions to prevent obesity in children - which are out now!

The Cochrane review ‘Interventions for preventing obesity in children’ has undergone its sixth update. This review has now been broken down into smaller age ranges. Today sees the publication of the primary school (children aged 5-11 years) and secondary school children and adolescents (aged 12-18 years) reviews. The pre-school (2-4 years) review is due to be published later this year.

The reviews looked at BMI, age- and sex-standardised BMI (zBMI) and percentile BMI, reported in randomised controlled trials with interventions aimed at changing diet, physical activity levels (including sedentary time) or both.

The reviews are informing guidance on childhood obesity, with NICE including the analyses in their new guidance due to be published later in 2024. The images are a visual summary of each of the two updated reviews.

An infographic summarising the Cochrane Review

Full reviews are available here:

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD015328.pub2

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD015330.pub2