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. 2018 Nov 1;10(11):1612.
doi: 10.3390/nu10111612.

Dietary Energy Density and Its Association with Overweight or Obesity in Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

Andrea Arango-Angarita  1 , Sonia Rodríguez-Ramírez  2 , Lluis Serra-Majem  3 , Teresa Shamah-Levy  4
Affiliations

Dietary Energy Density and Its Association with Overweight or Obesity in Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

Andrea Arango-Angarita et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Dietary energy density (DED) has been identified as a crucial dietary factor in body weight control, in that higher DED has been associated with weight gain. To our knowledge, no review studies have explained this association specifically in adolescents. The aim of this study was to describe the association of DED with overweight or obesity (OW/O) in adolescents, as derived from observational studies. We conducted a systematic search of the MEDLINE/PubMed and Science Direct databases, including studies published between January 2000 and December 2017. We selected the studies that included adolescents (aged 10⁻19 years) and contained DED-related information and anthropometric measurements of OW/O. From 1149 candidate studies, 30 were selected, though only 12 met all the inclusion criteria. Of these, only four found a positive association between DED and certain OW/O indicators, six found no association and two showed an inverse association with weight gain. These studies differed in several aspects such as design, DED calculation method and dietary assessment tool, leading to inconsistent results. Methodological differences found among the examined studies did not allow us to establish a clear conclusion of this association. Evidence in adolescents was also poor. New, standardized methodological approaches should be considered in future studies.

Keywords: adolescents; dietary energy density; energy density; overweight or obesity; weight gain.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart illustrating the study selection process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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