[Prevention of overweight in children: Standard setting documents]

The quality of preventive measures is an essential precondition for their success. A current objective of health policy in Germany is to find the criteria for quality, as well as to process and discuss them systematically with relevant stakeholders.

An assessment of the quality standards of overweight prevention in children was the main objective of the study. Scientific articles and standard-setting documents of purchasers and providers of measures were analyzed.

A literature search with the meta-database MEDPILOT yielded 19 relevant papers, which were processed using a content analysis. An internet-based inquiry using the search engine Google led to 62 standard-setting documents for further analysis.

There is hardly any German literature on the intersection of quality standards and primary overweight prevention in children. Only six of the standard-setting documents have a focus on overweight prevention in children. Overall, there is a wide range of criteria. The documents of the central actors have wide intersection and show a common understanding of quality. Nevertheless, the documents do not relate to each other and it is not yet clear which documents guide the actions for prevention practice.

To develop common standards, mutual recognition is needed between actors of the field, science and politics. The scientific discourse needs to interrelate better studies of primary prevention with overweight research as well as quality assessment.