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Interventions in the first 1000 days to prevent childhood obesity: a systematic review and quantitative content
Celia Pérez-Muñoz1, Jesús Carretero-Bravo2, Esther Ortega-Martín2
1Facultad de Enfermería Y Fisioterapia, University of Cádiz, Ana de Viya 52, 11009, Cádiz, Spain. celia.perez@uca.es.
Insights
Interventions in the first 1000 days of life aim to combat childhood obesity. Current programs, mostly in high-income countries, often end at birth and need broader scope and focus on long-term outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Maternal and Child Health
- Nutritional Science
Background:
- Childhood obesity is a global health concern.
- Interventions targeting early programming and risk factors are increasing.
- This study reviews interventions within the first 1000 days of life.
Conclusions:
- Current early-life interventions have limited scope and duration.
- Future research should prioritize developing countries and disadvantaged groups.
- Interventions should be comprehensive, inclusive, and extend throughout the first 1000 days, using appropriate effectiveness measures.
Background:
Childhood obesity poses a global health challenge. In recent years, there has been an increase in interventions that begin in pregnancy, putting the concept of early programming and early risk factors into practice. The present study aims to update the findings regarding interventions in the first 1000 days of life.
Methods:
A systematic review based on the PRISMA guidelines was carried out in PubMed, WoS, Scopus and CINAHL to obtain the articles to be analysed. We included those studies published between 2016 and 2021. Human interventions that started within the first 1000 days of life and acted on at least one programming factor were included. Once selected, coding and quantitative content analysis was carried out to obtain a profile of the interventions during the first 1000 days.
Results:
From all screened articles, 51 unique interventions, which met the selection criteria, were included. The majority of interventions (81%) took place in high-income areas. Almost all (86%) were targeted at the general population. The majority (54%) started in the second trimester of pregnancy. A clear majority (61%) ended at the time of birth. 44% of the interventions included all pregnant women. Only 48% of these interventions were focused on improving the nutritional status of the offspring in the short term. Most interventions collected the baby's weight at birth (68%).
Conclusions:
It can be concluded that current interventions are not covering as many aspects as they should. Future research should be conducted more frequently in developing countries and target disadvantaged groups. These interventions should include all pregnant women, regardless of their nutritional status, aiming to cover as many programming factors as possible and extending through the first 1000 days of life, with body mass index or skinfolds as measures of effectiveness during this period.
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