Table 1.
Characteristics of Included Meta-Analysis and Systematic Reviews by Intervention Focus (Treatment and Prevention).
| Treatment Focused | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Author, Year a |
Year Range of Primary Studies | Number of Primary Studies | Participant Number | Participant Characteristics |
Study Setting (s) | Country of Origin of Included Studies b | Intervention Targets Included | Target Group (Comparators) | Study Design of Primary Studies | Meta-Analysis Conducted | |
| Nutr | PA | ||||||||||
| Ewald, 2014 | 1998–2011 | 8 studies reported in 10 papers and 2 protocols (12 papers in total) | 466 | Children aged 5–14 years (stated objective to target 5–12 years); children with overweight or obesity at baseline | Family based, university, hospital/outpatient, community | Israel, USA, Switzerland, Australia | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-only (parent-child, child-only) | RCTs | No |
| Jang, 2015 | 2007–2014 | 7 studies reported in 8 papers | 765 c | Children aged 3–13 years (mean age < 10 in 6/7 studies); majority non-Hispanic white (when reported); children with overweight or obesity at baseline | Community, hospital, university, not specified | USA, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-only (usual care, active control, alterative or partial intervention) | RCTs | No |
| Loveman, 2015 | 1975–2015 | 20 studies reported in 20 main papers for qualitative synthesis; of these, 14 studies were included for the meta-analysis | 3057 | Children aged 2–13 years (mean 4.9–11.5 years; stated objective to target 5–11 y); majority non-Hispanic White; children with overweight or obesity at baseline | Outpatient, community, university, primary care, combination | USA, Australia, Netherlands, Israel, Switzerland, Iran, Belgium | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-only (parent-child, waitlist control, minimal contact, other parent-only) | RCTs with at least six months of outcome assessment | Yes |
| McLean, 2003 * | 1981–1994 | 7 studies described in 11 papers | 300 | Children aged 6–13 | Not specified | USA, Sweden | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-child (comparators not specified) | Randomized trials | No |
| Mead, 2017 * | 1984–2016 | Analysis included 38 papers that described parental involvement (n = 35) or targeted parents (n = 3) | 4150 | Children aged 6–12 years Children with overweight, obesity, or severe obesity at baseline |
Outpatient, primary care, home, community, hospital, school | USA, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, Israel, Sweden, New Zealand, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Finland, Malaysia | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-child, parent-only (true control, usual/standard care, other parent-child) | RCTs with at least six months of follow-up | Yes |
| Oude Luttikhuis, 2009 * | 2006–2008 | 8 studies | 708 randomized (579 completed) | Children aged 5–12 years; children with overweight or obesity at baseline | Outpatient, school | Australia, Sweden, Israel, UK, Finland, Switzerland, unknown | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-only, parent-child (parent-child, other parent-only, waitlist control, usual/standard care) | RCTs | Yes |
| Sbruzzi, 2013 *,d |
2007–2011 | 8 studies | 849 | Children aged 6–12 years; children with overweight or obesity at baseline | Not specified | USA, UK, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Malaysia | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-only, parent-child, family-based (wait list control, usual/standard care, minimal contact) | RCTs | Yes |
| Young, 2007 | 1982–2004 | 16 studies | 666 | Children aged 5–13 years (stated objective to target 5–12 years); children with overweight or obesity at baseline | Not specified | Not specified | ✓ | ✓ | Parent as “helper” or parent treated Concurrently (other treatment, control) | Not reported | Yes |
| Treatment Participants | 10,961 | ||||||||||
| Prevention Focused | |||||||||||
| Gori, 2017 * | 2003–2014 | Mismatch in number of studies across published text, Table 1 | Not Extractable | Children aged 6–12 years Children with overweight or obesity at baseline |
Family or combined family and school based | USA, Australia, Argentina, Italy, Netherlands, Israel, France, Spain, UK | ✓ | ✓ | Family, parent-child, not specified (usual/standard care, minimal contact, true control, not specified) | RCT, non-RCT | Yes |
| Laws, 2014 * | 2005–2013 | 7 studies | 4294 | Children aged 2.5–6 years Studies targeted preschools with high numbers of children with migrant, Black, Latino, or low-income backgrounds |
Preschools | USA, France, Switzerland | ✓ | ✓ | Child-parent-teacher (comparators not specified) | Cluster RCT, quasi-experimental | No |
| Nixon, 2012 * | 1998–2010 | 7 studies that included parental involvement | Not Specified | Children aged 4–6.9 years | Preschools and schools | Germany, Greece, Scotland, Switzerland, USA, Australia, China, England, New Zealand, Thailand | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-child, not specified (comparators not specified) | RCTs, non-RCTs | No |
| Oosterhoff, 2016 * | 1985–2013 | 83 studies reported in 89 papers; 53 studies (in 54 papers) for which a parental component was described. All 83 studies were included in multivariable meta-regression model for BMI | 72,934 e | Children aged 4–12 years Range of BMIs at baseline; only 3 studies targeted children with overweight/obesity |
Schools | Europe, North America, Oceania, South America, North Africa (individual countries not listed) | ✓ | ✓ | Target group not specified (control groups received no intervention beyond typical school-based activities per inclusion criteria) | RCTs | Yes |
| Sobol-Goldberg, 2013 * | Not Extractable | 8 studies for the target age range for which parental involvement is described | 7710 | Children aged 5–12 years Range of BMIs at baseline |
Schools | Not extractable | ✓ | ✓ | Target group not specified (control groups received no intervention per inclusion criteria) | RCTs | Yes |
| Verjans-Janssen, 2018 * | 1999–2018 | 18 studies that included BMI/BMI z-score as an outcome | 34,361 | Children aged 4–12 years | Schools | China, USA, Australia, Greece, Chile, Germany, Italy, Mexico | ✓ | ✓ | Parent-child; all studies had direct parent involvement (comparators not specified) | RCT, quasi-experimental, pre-/post-test | No |
| Prevention Participants | 119,299 | ||||||||||
| Total Reported Participants | 130,260 f | ||||||||||
a Authors marked with an ‘*’ denote papers where an extractable subset of studies that met the inclusion criteria of the present study are reported rather than all studies included in the referenced publication. b Country of origin is listed in order from most to least, where reported. c Participants in this study identified as families. d Sbruzzi also reported and separately analyzed prevention-focused studies; however, a parental component was not described for these studies, and the prevention-focused section is therefore not included in the current umbrella review. e Participant number reflects 85 total studies, two of which did not report on BMI but rather on blood pressure outcomes only (another study objective); of these, 83 were included in the BMI meta-analysis. f Participant number reflects the number that could be counted and does not include those studies for which the number of participants was not reported or extractable; as such, this number is lower than the actual number of participants.