Contribution of home and school environment in children’s food choice and overweight/obesity prevalence in African context: evidence for creating enabling healthful food environment
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Date
2020
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Publisher
DovePress
Abstract
Abstract: This review aimed primarily to investigate the current trends of overweight and
obesity in school children in the African context, secondly to explore the contribution of
home and school environments on the children’s food choices and lastly suggesting measures
for creating a healthier food environment. Despite the increase in overweight and obesity
among school children, empirical evidence on their determinants in the African context is
scarce, thus calls for consideration of home and school environments. A literature search was
conducted between October and December 2018 using Medline (PubMed), Directory of
Open Access Journals, Google Scholar, manual search and “grey” literature. This review
included articles published between the 1st January 2008 and 30th June 2018. Out of 343
articles, 49 were included for the full text reading after meeting the inclusion criteria. Five
reports from grey literature were also included. Results show that the prevalence of over-
weight and obesity among school children in Africa is increasing and ranges from <5% to
>40% in the 10-year period in which the review was taken. High socio-economic status,
urban residence and female gender predicted higher prevalence of overweight/obesity. Few
reviewed articles on the contribution of home and school environments on children’s food
choices showed a shred of evidence, thus calls for further research to address this gap. This
review found an increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in school children in
Africa. Therefore, further investigation of home and school environment is imperative to
curb the increase in the magnitude of overweight and obesity.
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Food choice, Food environment, Prevalence, School-children, Strategies, Africa