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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Prim Prev. 2014 Aug;35(4):203–215. doi: 10.1007/s10935-014-0352-5

Table 2. Characteristics of Primary Studies Included in Anthropometric Meta-Analysis.

Characteristic s Min Q 1 Mdn Q 3 Max
Supervised exercise
Mean age (years) 442 18 26 37 53 82
Total post-test sample size per study 535 4 13 22 38 1897
Treatment-group post-test sample size per study 535 4 11 17 29 1897
Comparison-group post-test sample size per
study		 210 2 8 11 20 102
Percentage attrition from treatment sample 349 0 0 8 23 62
Percentage attrition from comparison sample 150 0 0 5 19 73
Percentage female 515 0 0 55 100 100
Percentage ethnic minority 48 0 0 8 48 100
Mean baseline BMI (kg/m2) for treatment
sample		 54 21 25 28 33 46
Mean baseline BMI (kg/m2) for comparison
sample		 20 22 23 27 31 36
Minutes of supervised exercise per session 449 7 38 47 60 600
Mean frequency per week of exercise sessions 515 0 3 3 5 36
Total number of supervised exercise sessions 514 2 28 42 72 2028
Motivational interventions
Mean age (years) 216 18 39 43 48 72
Total posttest sample size per study 283 5 28 56 141 23153
Treatment-group post-test sample size per study 282 5 25 52 129 23153
Comparison-group post-test sample size per
study		 66 5 19 52 233 5311
Percentage attrition from treatment sample 190 0 6 18 34 79
Percentage attrition from comparison sample 40 0 2 15 30 80
Percentage female 248 0 42 81 100 100
Percentage ethnic minority 79 0 5 15 67 100
Mean baseline BMI (kg/m2) for treatment
sample		 84 22 26 30 34 41
Mean baseline BMI (kg/m2) for comparison
sample		 28 22 25 27 30 34
Number of intervention strategies 283 0 1 3 5 17
Total number of intervention minutes 61 30 200 720 1440 7415
Recommended minutes of PA per session 89 2 27 30 40 90
Recommended minutes of PA per week 87 11 90 140 175 840

Note. Includes all studies that contributed to primary analyses at least one effect size for any type of comparison. We aggregated samples within studies by summing sample sizes and using weighted mean of other characteristics (weighted by sample size). s = number of reports providing data on characteristic; Q1 = first quartile; Q3 = third quartile; BMI = body mass index; PA = physical activity.