Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jul 28, 2021
Date Accepted: Mar 21, 2022
The effectiveness of wearable devices as physical activity interventions for preventing and treating obesity in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
The prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents remains a global public health issue. Wearable devices may offer new opportunities to prevent and intervene in obesity. The previous systematic reviews have examined the effect of the wearable device interventions on preventing obesity in adults. However, no systematic review has provided an evaluation of wearable devices tools for preventing obesity in children and adolescents.
Objective:
The purpose of this review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that incorporate wearable devices for preventing obesity in children and adolescents.
Methods:
Research articles obtained from Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and EBSCO from inception to February 1, 2021, were reviewed. The search aims to discover studies involving wearable devices that prevent obesity in children and adolescents. The studies were selected, according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The included studies were evaluated for risk of bias following the Cochrane recommendation. Meta-analyses were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of wearable device interventions on body weight, body fat, BMI-Z, BMI, and waist circumference. Subgroup analyses were performed to determine whether the characteristics of the interventions had an impact on the effect size.
Results:
Based on 2770 study participants, 10 randomized controlled trials were selected for meta-analysis. Compared with the control group, interventions that incorporate wearable devices have statistically significant beneficial effects on body fat (MD = -0.55; 95% CI -1.07 to -0.02; P=0.04; I2=20%). However, no statistically significant effect was found on BMI (MD = -0.19; 95% CI -0.41 to 0.02; P=0.08; I2=27%), BMI-Z(MD = -0.04; 95% CI -0.01 to 0.03; P=0.31, I2=74%), body weight(MD = -0.58; 95% CI -1.28 to 0.11; P=0.10, I2=37%) and waist circumference(MD = 0.40; 95% CI -0.52 to 1.32; P=0.39, I2=0%). The subgroup analysis showed that for overweight or obese children and adolescents (MD = -0.75; 95% CI -1.19 to -0.32; P <0.01; I2=0%); in the short-term(MD = -0.63; 95% CI -1.03 to -0.22; P <0.01; I2=0%); wearable-based interventions (MD = -0.57; 95% CI -0.95 to -0.18; P <0.01; I2=0%) generally resulted in improvements in BMI.
Conclusions:
Wearable-based interventions may be useful strategies for preventing obesity in children and adolescents in the short term (especially, participants were overweight or obese). Future research should evaluate the long-term effectiveness of wearable-based interventions for normal-weight children and adolescents.
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