Population-based interventions to prevent overweight and obesity: a systematic review

Abstract

Preoccupation on public health and alimentacion-nutricion processes of populations, evolved from the first half of the 20th century, according to the high prevalence and incidence of non-communicable chronic diseases. Overweight and obesity are the main factors of risk of disease and death around the world for this group of diseases. The understanding the processes involved in the evolution of the interventions aimed at tackling the malnutrition for excess, allows analyze their scope and limitations, allow adjustments and thus feedback implementation at public health programs.

The objective of this study was to analyze the work carried out in areas of public health, aimed to reducing overweight and obesity at the level of populations, since the end of the 20th century onwards, around the world through the scientific literature.

A systematic review of the literature was completed, using the online databases: Pubmed/Medline, LILACS and SCIELO, using combination of specifics key words: Overweight/obesity, intervention, prevention, population, and implementation, starting from inclusion and exclusion criteria defined. The selection of the literature was conducted by two reviewers, who independently perform data extraction to reduce the risk of bias. The process of debugging threw a total of 45 articles, that have been filtered for it’s inclusion in the systematic review.

Most of the interventions were aimed to the population of children aged preschool/school (82.2 % of the total; n = 37). The main components  were promotion of physical activity and healthy eating as strategies designed to prevent overweight and obesity. Interventions that had better results in terms of reduction of body mass index and reduce risk factors were those that combined strategies of food education, physical activity, family involvement and psychological support.

It can be concluded that interventions that develop comprehensive strategies obtained the best effects in health and/or reduction of the risk factors for these diseases. The knowledge generated in this study will be useful to guide future population-based interventions and propose public policies to address the problem