ReviewChildhood obesity (Print)2014
School year versus summer differences in child weight gain: a narrative review.
Review in Childhood obesity (Print), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 103 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
103 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Exploring the Effects of Lifestyle Disruptions on Physical Fitness in Children and Adolescents: a Systematic Scoping Review.Sports medicine - open · 2025Pooled it
- Health effects of children's summer holiday programs: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Pooled it
- Cardiovascular safety of long-term anti-obesity drugs in subjects with overweight or obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2021Pooled it
- School-based interventions for the treatment of childhood obesity: a systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of cluster randomised controlled trials.Public health nutrition · 2021Pooled it
- Accelerated weight gain among children during summer versus school year and related racial/ethnic disparities: a systematic review.Preventing chronic disease · 2014Pooled it
- Free summer programming on elementary-aged children's food and beverage consumption: a randomized clinical trial.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Trial
- Changes in fitness and fatness in Australian schoolchildren during the summer holidays: fitness lost, fatness regained? A cohort study.BMC public health · 2023Trial
- Participation in structured programming may prevent unhealthy weight gain during the summer in school-aged children from low-income neighbourhoods: feasibility, fidelity and preliminary efficacy findings from the Camp NERF study.Public health nutrition · 2019Trial
- School-Based Weight Management Program Curbs Summer Weight Gain Among Low-Income Hispanic Middle School Students.The Journal of school health · 2019Trial
- Camp NERF: methods of a theory-based nutrition education recreation and fitness program aimed at preventing unhealthy weight gain in underserved elementary children during summer months.BMC public health · 2016Trial
- Trial
- Promoting Physical Activity and Peer Relationships in Adolescent Girls Through a Summer Program.Health promotion practice · 2026Article
- Five-year trends in overweight and obesity among preschool children before and during the COVID-19 period: a retrospective repeated-measures analysis in Southwest China.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- When Routines Break: The Health Implications of Disrupted Daily Life.American journal of lifestyle medicine · 2026Review
- Protocol for a randomized controlled dose response trial to combat accelerated summer BMI gain in children: The Determining the Optimal amount of Structured Environments (DOSE) study.Contemporary clinical trials · 2025Article
- Family and Home Environment Predictors of Children's 24-Hour Movement Guideline Adherence: A Mixed-Methods Study.Childhood obesity (Print) · 2025Article
- Combining Ecological Momentary Assessment and Social Network Analysis to Study Youth Physical Activity and Environmental Influences: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Feasibility Study.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- The Philadelphia Beverage Tax and Pediatric Weight Outcomes.JAMA pediatrics · 2025Article
- Preliminary Effectiveness of a One-Week Summer Day Camp for Improving Children's Health Behaviors and Psychosocial Well-Being Outcomes.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Effect of Summer Holiday Programs on Children's Mental Health and Well-Being: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The causes of the current high prevalence of overweight and obesity among children are not clearly known. Schools have been implicated in the causal chain to high child obesity prevalence. Recent studies have compared school year versus summertime changes (herein called seasonal differences) in child adiposity or related phenomena. The most common seasonal pattern in six longitudinal descriptive studies was that overweight and obese children experienced accelerated gain in weight or some BMI indicator during the summer, whereas healthy weight children gained less or not at all. Four physical activity (PA) intervention studies demonstrated that school year fitness improvements were lost during the summer. One study showed that PA declined across the summer. Another study provided conflicting results of lower total energy expenditure in the summer, but no seasonal difference in total energy expenditure after adjusting for fat-free mass. This pattern of fairly rapid seasonal differences suggests that PA is the primary factor contributing to seasonal differences in weight or BMI, but the documented seasonal pattern in PA (i.e., higher in summer) does not support this relationship. Sleep duration has also been inversely related to child adiposity. Seasonal patterns in adiposity, PA, and sleep need to be clearly established separately for overweight and healthy weight children in further longitudinal research to provide a clear focus for national policy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.