Prevalence of Obesity and Overweight in Iranian Children under 5 Years: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background and Aim: The aim of this research was to determine the prevalence of childhood obesity and Overweight in Iranian children under 5 years, using systematic review and meta-analysis.Methods: This was a systematic review and meta-analysis study. All original studies were searched from electronic scientific databases including Medline (PubMed), Web of sciences, Google scholar, Scopus, CINHAL and the Iranian databases consist of SID (Scientific Information Database, www.sid.ir), Irandoc (Iranian Research Institute for information Science and Technology, Irandoc.ac.ir), Iranmedex (www.iranmedex.com), and Magiran (www.magiran.com) from January 1989 to August 2017. We employed random effect model to generate a pooled prevalence. The reported prevalence is presented as percent and 95% confidence interval (CI). Sources of heterogeneity among the studies were determined using subgroup analysis and meta-regression.Results: Finally, 6 studies from different settings remained for meta-analysis in order to have a pooled prevalence estimate, which prevalence of total obesity and overweight was 8 % (95% CI 6 - 10) and 9 % (95% CI 7 - 11). Subgroup analysis for gender showed that the prevalence of obesity in boy and girls children were 9% (95% CI 6 - 13) and 7% (95% CI 4 - 10), respectively. Also pooled prevalence of oYHUZHLJKW LQ ER\ DQG JLUOVʼ FKLOGUHQ ZHUH 10 (95 &, 5 - 15) and 9% (95% CI 5 - 13), respectively.Conclusion: The prevalence of obesity and overweight was higher among children younger than 5 years in Iran, but was high heterogeneity among the results of included studies. Therefore, it seems further studies are needed to substantiate the cause of the high prevalence.

Keywords:

Prevalence , Overweight , Obesity , Children under 5 years , Meta-analysis