The effects of obesity in childhood and adolescence: The role of physiotherapy: Review of reviews

Introduction: Obesity remains a growing global issue with its prevalence in the developed world increasing fourfold in recent decades. Childhood may represent a critical window of opportunity for intervention and prevention of long-term consequences. While physiotherapy has the practical potential to contribute to the treatment of childhood obesity, its role remains unclear due to a lack of specific guidelines.
Aim: The aim of this review is to explore the existing literature to delineate, identify and evaluate the role of physiotherapy in the management of childhood obesity
Method: A review was conducted of existing literature in 4 databases, Pubmed. Embase, Cinahl, Medline.
Results: Of the original 273 articles collected based on title and abstracts, 36 were included which were reviews. Of these, 23 were systematic reviews and 13 were literature reviews. The interventions involved quality-oriented physical activity and quantity-oriented physical activity as well as combined interventions involving different disciplines. The physical therapy interventions for children with obesity that appear to be significantly effective are: First, multi-component interventions involving environmental modification and family involvement and second, quantity-based physical activity interventions
Conclusion: Physical therapy in the treatment of children with obesity can play an important role as part of a multidisciplinary team (doctors, psychologists, teachers, trainers and others), evaluating and developing exercise programs with the ultimate goal of increasing quantitative physical activity, a practice that seems to yield the best results. Future studies should examine the impact of different rehabilitation programs depending on the individual characteristics of the children (profile, size of the problem, presence of comorbidities).