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Obesity in young children and its relationship with diagnosis of asthma, vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, specific allergies and flat‐footedness: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Malden, Stephen; Gillespie, Jenny; Hughes, Adrienne; Gibson, Ann‐Marie; Farooq, Abdulaziz; Martin, Anne; Summerbell, Carolyn; Reilly, John J.

Obesity in young children and its relationship with diagnosis of asthma, vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, specific allergies and flat‐footedness: A systematic review and meta‐analysis Thumbnail


Authors

Stephen Malden

Jenny Gillespie

Adrienne Hughes

Ann‐Marie Gibson

Abdulaziz Farooq

Anne Martin

John J. Reilly



Abstract

There is evidence that a number of medical conditions and co‐morbidities are associated with obesity in young children. This review explored whether there is evidence of associations with other conditions or co‐morbidities. Observational studies of young children (mean age < 10 years) were identified using electronic searches of five databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, AMED and SPORTDiscus). Of 27 028 studies screened, 41 (comprising 44 comparisons) met the inclusion criteria. These studies provided data on five distinct diseases/conditions: asthma (n = 16), vitamin D deficiency (n = 10), iron deficiency (n = 10), allergies (n = 4) and flat‐footedness (n = 4). Thirty‐two studies were appropriate for meta‐analysis using random‐effects models, and revealed obesity was significantly associated with having asthma (OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.3–1.7), vitamin D deficiency (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.4–2.5) and iron deficiency (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.4–3.2). Heterogeneity (I2) ranged from 57% to 61%. Narrative synthesis was conducted for all studies. There was no evidence of a consistent association between obesity in young children and eczema, dermatitis or rhinitis due to the low number of studies. However, there was an association with flat‐footedness. These results have implications for health policy and practice and families. Further research leading to a greater understanding of the associations identified in this review is suggested.

Citation

Malden, S., Gillespie, J., Hughes, A., Gibson, A., Farooq, A., Martin, A., …Reilly, J. J. (2020). Obesity in young children and its relationship with diagnosis of asthma, vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, specific allergies and flat‐footedness: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Obesity Reviews, 22(3), Article e13129. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13129

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 28, 2020
Online Publication Date Aug 18, 2020
Publication Date 2020-03
Deposit Date Aug 18, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Obesity Reviews
Print ISSN 1467-7881
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 22
Issue 3
Article Number e13129
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13129

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Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (3.1 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2020 The Authors. Obesity Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of World Obesity Federation. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.




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