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. 2014 Jan 22:14:70.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-70.

Obesity and overweight in Bangladeshi children and adolescents: a scoping review

Sholeh Rahman, Md Tauhidul Islam, Dewan S Alam  1
Affiliations

Obesity and overweight in Bangladeshi children and adolescents: a scoping review

Sholeh Rahman et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Obesity and overweight in children and adolescents is an emerging public health concern alongside under-nutrition in low and middle income countries. Our aim was to conduct a scoping review of literature to ascertain what is known about childhood and adolescent overweight and/or obesity in Bangladesh.

Method: Using the scoping review based on York methodology, a comprehensive search of published academic articles, conference proceedings and grey literature was carried out through PubMed, BanglaJOL, Google and Google scholar limited to English-written papers. We summarized prevalence, risk factors and health outcomes of obesity/overweight in young children and adolescents aged between 0 to 19 years old in Bangladesh and highlighted use of different reference standards to measure childhood obesity.

Results: In total 21 studies met the inclusion criteria. Nearly all of the reviewed articles used data from cross sectional studies, while only two used case-control design. Overall thirteen studies (62%) were primary research and eight (38%) included secondary data. Studies indicated an increasing trend in childhood obesity over time. Prevalence ranged from less than 1% to 17.9% based on different reference standards, with higher percentage amongst urban children across different age groups and sexes.

Conclusion: This review demonstrated paucity of comprehensive literature on childhood obesity in Bangladesh, which might be explored through population-based prospective studies based on strong methodology and uniform reference standards. Sustainable and scalable preventative measures targeting high risk groups are required to avoid further rise.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Steps in performing the scoping review on childhood obesity in Bangladesh. After determining the research question and search strategy, the authors conducted literature search using specific keywords followed by review of the selected literature to generate the results.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flowchart of the number of literature searched and selected. Sequential steps undertaken for final inclusion of the literature in our review.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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