prevalence of obesity in iranian children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background and objective: the prevalence of childhood obesity and overweight and its rising trend in recent decades have taken a worrying form. since obesity at this age lays the foundation for obesity in adulthood and entails consequences, and also in view of the extensive studies conducted that have yielded different results, the present meta-analysis study related to the prevalence of obesity in iranian children was conducted to provide a credible result for planners.method: all cross-sectional studies on the prevalence of obesity in ian were extracted from national and international databases such as scopus, iranmedex, sid, magiran, and pubmed in october 2021. moreover, the random effect model with 95% confidence level was used to analyze the data and obtain summary effect. findings: this study included 42 articles that met the inclusion criteria. according to the studies, the prevalence of obesity and overweight in iranian children was 10.32% and 12.48%, respectively. conclusion: the present meta-analysis study indicated that the prevalence of obesity in this country is increasing and the rate is higher in girls than in boys. changing lifestyles and promotion of poor nutrition in modern society have necessitated the planning and implementation of intervention programs for this age group at the family, school, and social levels.