title: Effectiveness of school-based intervention programs in reducing prevalence of overweight.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the effectiveness of school-based interventions program in reducing the prevalence of overweight or obesity among schoolchildren.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ovid Medline (1950-December 2012), Embase (1980-2012), CINAHL (1982-2012), secondary references, review articles, and expert in the field.
  
  
  METHODS
  All published clinical trials were eligible for study if were randomized, methodologically strong-based on a validity assessment, aimed to evaluate a school-based intervention for childhood overweight or obesity, and measured outcome in term of prevalence/incidence difference in overweight and obesity among both groups. Studies involved in cost-effective analysis of school-based intervention have been excluded. Data from eligible studies abstracted and pooled for relative risk.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Five trials with 3,904 schoolchildren were included. Mean age of the students (boys and girls) ranges 8.6-12.6 years. Meta-analysis showed a statistical significance beneficial effect of school-based intervention programs on obesity status of schoolchildren (risk ratio (RR) 0.58, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.43-0.78) and suggested 42% reduction in prevalence of obesity among schoolchildren through school-based intervention programs. Individual studies also showed effectiveness of these school-based interventions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  School-based intervention programs are effective in prevention of childhood overweight and obesity problem and our results quantitatively supported this argument.
authors: School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
authors: Sajid
authors: S
authors: Mahmood
authors: School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
authors: Tahira
authors: T
authors: Perveen
authors: School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
authors: Allah
authors: A
authors: Dino
authors: School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
authors: Faisa
authors: F
authors: Ibrahim
authors: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors: Jaishri
authors: J
authors: Mehraj
keywords: Children; obesity; overweight; school-based intervention