ReviewObesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity2019
Childhood obesity intervention studies: A narrative review and guide for investigators, authors, editors, reviewers, journalists, and readers to guard against exaggerated effectiveness claims.
Review in Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 3 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
19 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Interventions for Childhood Central Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA network open · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of school-based weight-related interventions in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.Systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- [Strategies and effects of digital interventions in overweight and obesity treatments in children and adolescents-a systematic review].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2022Pooled it
- The Effectiveness of an Emotional Intelligence Training Program on Emotional Intelligence and Multidimensional Self-Efficacy: A Quasi-Experimental Study.Journal of nursing management · 2026Article
- Social Desirability Bias in a Randomized Controlled Trial That Included Breastfeeding Promotion in Western Kenya.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Article
- Causal models and causal modelling in obesity: foundations, methods and evidence.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Reanalysis Accounting for Clustering and Nesting Overturns Conclusions in: "Watching TV Cooking Programs: Effects on Actual Food Intake Among Children".Journal of nutrition education and behavior · 2023Article
- Traffic Light Diets for Childhood Obesity: Disambiguation of Terms and Critical Review of Application, Food Categorization, and Strength of Evidence.Current developments in nutrition · 2022Review
- Moving Toward Health Policy that Respects Both Science and People Living with Obesity.The Nursing clinics of North America · 2021Review
- Errors in the implementation, analysis, and reporting of randomization within obesity and nutrition research: a guide to their avoidance.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2021Review
- Estimating trunk fat in children according to sex using basic somatic readings: an opportunity for improving evaluation among girls.BMC pediatrics · 2021Article
- Perspective: Evidence before Enthusiasm-A Critical Review of the Potential Cardiovascular Benefits of Vitamin K.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Review
- Long-Term Dietary and Physical Activity Interventions in the School Setting and Their Effects on BMI in Children Aged 6-12 Years: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Young people's use of e-cigarettes in Wales, England and Scotland before and after introduction of EU Tobacco Products Directive regulations: a mixed-method natural experimental evaluation.The International journal on drug policy · 2020Article
- Article
- Questions on 'Intervention effects of a kindergarten-based health promotion programme on obesity related behavioural outcomes and BMI percentiles'.Preventive medicine reports · 2020Article
- Improving open and rigorous science: ten key future research opportunities related to rigor, reproducibility, and transparency in scientific research.F1000Research · 2020Article
- High impact nutrition and dietetics journals' use of publication procedures to increase research transparency.Research integrity and peer review · 2020Article
- A Longitudinal Effectiveness Study of a Child Obesity Electronic Health Record Tool.Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFMArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Being able to draw accurate conclusions from childhood obesity trials is important to make advances in reversing the obesity epidemic. However, obesity research sometimes is not conducted or reported to appropriate scientific standards. To constructively draw attention to this issue, we present 10 errors that are commonly committed, illustrate each error with examples from the childhood obesity literature, and follow with suggestions on how to avoid these errors. These errors are as follows: using self-reported outcomes and teaching to the test; foregoing control groups and risking regression to the mean creating differences over time; changing the goal posts; ignoring clustering in studies that randomize groups of children; following the forking paths, subsetting, p-hacking, and data dredging; basing conclusions on tests for significant differences from baseline; equating "no statistically significant difference" with "equally effective"; ignoring intervention study results in favor of observational analyses; using one-sided testing for statistical significance; and stating that effects are clinically significant even though they are not statistically significant. We hope that compiling these errors in one article will serve as the beginning of a checklist to support fidelity in conducting, analyzing, and reporting childhood obesity research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.