| Design | Ninety randomized controlled trials |
|---|---|
| Populations | • Not limited to children who are normal weight (overweight and obese children included in most studies) • Twenty interventions involved children aged 0–5 years, 53 involved children aged 6–12 years, and 17 involved youth aged 13–18 years • Seventy-six studies included boys and girls, 11 included only girls and 3 included only boys |
| Interventions | • Sixteen diet interventions, 20 exercise interventions, 32 diet-plus-exercise interventions and 22 lifestyle interventions • Sixty-two studies had intervention arms in educational settings, 19 had intervention arms in noneducational settings, 8 had intervention arms in education plus other settings and 1 study had 2 intervention arms (one offered only in an education setting and one offered in education plus other settings) • Twenty-one interventions used interactive education approaches; 25 used behavioural approaches; 8 used therapy, management or counselling; and 36 used multicomponent strategies • Sixty-one interventions (68%) were 12 months or less in duration; 87 interventions (97%) were 3 years or less in duration |
| Quality assessment | • Sixty-eight studies (76%) were published between 2009 and 2013; 22 (24%) were published between 1998 and 2008 • Most outcomes received very low quality ratings (downgraded for risk of bias, inconsistency or indirectness; sometimes also downgraded for imprecision and occasionally for reporting bias) |
| Study locations | • Two studies in Canada; 1 in Canada and the US; 39 in the US; 29 in Europe; 9 in Australia; 2 in Brazil; 2 in Israel; and 1 in each of China, Egypt, India, Mexico, New Zealand and Thailand |
| Publication dates | • Sixty-eight studies (76%) were published between 2009 and 2013; 22 (24%) were published between 1998 and 2008 |