Scoping Review of School-Based Obesity Interventions among Children and Adolescents in Arabic Speaking Countries

BACKGROUND- Childhood and adolescent obesity globally presents a huge public health problem and the dramatic increase in its prevalence and associated poor health outcomes pose serious concerns among Arabic-speaking countries. AIM- This scoping review seeks to identify the characteristics and assess the effectiveness of school-based health promotion interventions on prevention or reduction of overweight/obesity among children and adolescents. This review further describes the implementation and evaluation of nutrition and physical activity interventions and their measured health outcomes for schools in Arabic speaking countries. METHODS- We searched 10 electronic databases (PubMed MEDLINE, Scopus, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), ERIC, EMBASE, ProQuest, EBSCO Host and Global Health) from 2010 to 2020 for studies evaluating school-based health promotion interventions on obesity or overweight among children and adolescents in Arab speaking countries. Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria for this review and narrative synthesis was conducted. RESULTS- The 16 articles reported on eight discretely different interventions which were largely school-based and examined physical activity and/or nutritional changes as well as changes in knowledge and attitude in regard to physical activity and nutrition. CONCLUSION- Our review demonstrates an inconclusive and mixed effect of behavioural and physical activity intervention on prevention or reduction of obesity and/or overweight. While the strengths and limitations of the various interventions may have influenced the outcomes, long-term school-based interventions with rigorous methodological and theoretical frameworks are necessary to assess the true impact of these interventions on childhood and adolescent obesity in Arab speaking countries.