Literature Review Example on Childhood Obesity in the United States

Peer-Reviewed Article Referenced in APA Citation:

Cheung, P. C., Cunningham, S. A., Narayan, K. V., & Kramer, M. R. (2016). Childhood obesity incidence in the United States: a systematic review. Childhood Obesity, 12(1), 1-11.

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Article Type (ex. Diagnostic Test Study, etc.; refer to Supplemental Materials Various Critical Appraisal Checklists for more options):

NA

General Purpose of the Study/Article:

To prevent child obesity in the United States in the future.

If the article chosen is >5 years, explain the historical relevance?

The children are above five years because the lack BMI Statistics

1. Was the problem clearly defined?

2. Was a verifiable hypothesis formulated?

3. Was the hypothesis one that was logically deduced from some theory (or other problem)?

4. Were the assumptions clearly stated?

5. Were the important terms defined?

6. Was the relationship of the problem to previous research, if any, made clear Comments

The main problem highlighted is the racial or ethnic trends in childhood obesity in the United States. This problem is one of the current health concerns globally and is caused by caloric intake imbalance and utilization in children which leads to excess weight in the victim. The problem can give rise to many diseases which are chronic and are carried into adulthood thus making the life of the children risky. Obesity is caused by behavioral, environmental and genetic factors and can be prevented through community component or clinical. The body mass index (BMI) should be used to measure the body fat of the children so as to enable a person to calculate if the child is obese, overweight, normal weight or underweight.

The BMI which is the hypothesis used is verifiable since it successfully measures weight of a large number of children and found that about 33.05% of children in the US are overweight. The hypothesis is the one used is the one used in other related studies because it generates good data which can be analyzed. The assumptions are stated by assuming all children to be at the midpoint of the years reported because the BMI was reported in months.

B. Design and Procedures

1. Was the statistical design employed in the investigation appropriate to the particular study conditions and level of data?

2. Was the population studied clearly specified?

3. Was the method, or methods, of drawing a sample from the population clearly specified?

4. Was a control group chosen in the same manner and from the same population as the experimental groups?

5. Were the size and characteristics of the sample adequately described?

6. Were the various treatments (including control) assigned at random to the group?

7. Were the validity and reliability of the instruments established?

Comments

The study design used was retrospective observational design. This was appropriate design because the subject requires studying participants as they occur in nature without being manipulated or subjected to any intervention or treatment. This design is a kind of cross-sectional survey design because it relies on and utilizes data collected at one point, in this case, they relied on data from the 2011 National Survey of Childrens Health. The study used a population of about 31, 706, 183 children living in 50 states of the United States.

The sample was drawn from three categories; healthy weight, underweight and overweight and it included children of different races such as Hispanic, non-Hispanic and others. This shows that the control group was chosen uniformly. The children studied were between 10 and 17 years of age and among the selected kids were 2,503 underweight, 12,788 overweight and 28, 573 healthy weight. The assigning of the treatments to the groups was random because it was scattered across 50 states of the United States. The validity if the BMI used was approved because it produced real data but it was not reliable with the results, especially for age, needs further assessments such as evaluating of diet, healthy screening, and skin fold thickness measurements so as to assess the relation of excess fats to health problems.

B. Design and Procedures. Continued

1. Was the level of significance necessary for rejection of the null hypothesis specified before the data were collected and analyzed?

2. Were the treatments and methods of collecting data described so that an independent investigator could replicate the experiment?

3. Were the treatments administered so that extraneous sources of error were either held constant for all treatment and control groups or randomized among subjects within all groups?

Comments

The study did not give out methods of collecting data since they relied on data from the 2011 National Survey of Children's Healthy. This makes it hard for an independent investigator to replicate this study. The data with errors was removed for example errors in weight measures and self-reported height which led to the removal of children under ten years. This means that the sources of errors were held constant among all the groups.

C. Results

1. Were the results clearly presented?

2. Were the results related to the problem statement?

Comments

The results have been presented where the study came up with graphs showing the weight of the children and table showing the results of the BMI for the children. The results were exactly related to the problem of obesity since it found a percentage of children who are obese in the United States and the difference in obesity status by ethnicity.

D. Article Type Specific Questions (Type additional questions provided in the Supplemental Materials Various Critical Appraisal Checklists not addressed in the previous sections)

Will the study be significant? Were the factors affecting obesity clearly stated? Was the rationale of the study shown? Was data graphically sampled? What tools did the study utilize to analyze the data?

Comments

The study will be significant because it provides results which will aid in coming up with policies and interventions to prevent the early childhood obesity in the US. Factors affecting obesity stated include behavioral factors like dietary and physical contributions, environmental factors like parents habit and other people, and genetic factors like Paraoxonase, and Adiponectin. The rationale used is BMI status of children by racial divides and their trends. The graphs of weight disaggregation of sampled children by ethnic groups, gender, and educational level are given. The data was analyzed by comparing dependent and independent variables.

E. Interpretation

1. Were the conclusions clearly stated?

2. Were the conclusions substantiated by evidence presented?

3. Were the generalizations confined to the population from which the sample was drawn?

4. Did the author(s) stay within their data when generating conclusions? Comments

The study concluded by advising government, public health and policy makers to come up with policies to reduce childhood obesity in the US and special attention should be paid to Hispanic children and non-Hispanic black children who have little education. The recommendation is related to the cases where the Hispanic and non-Hispanic blacks had the highest percentage of obese children of 39% and 37% respectively. The level of education also was a determinant factor since it showed that children with healthy weights increased with level of education. The results were generalized to the entire population in the US.

Application

How will your understanding of this article assist you in providing services to those with whom you work?

Through analyzing the results given by this article, I have understood what causes obesity in children and how it can be managed. This will help me advise families I encounter in my life to do various activities stated to prevent obesity in children. My assistance also will be required in local health centers to advice people more about children obesity.

Relevance to Population and Community Health

Discuss how you might best apply the findings of this article to a community setting in an effort to promote health and prevent disease?

I will advise the government to engage the people in looking for ways to prevent this disease through conducting seminars or meetings. Through chiefs and elders, I will arrange a community meeting so that we discuss the matter and arrange how we will go about to treat the matter.

Rating

On scale of 0-10 (0 - lowest; 10 - highest), rate the article and briefly indicate specified examples of information deemed useful for remaining poster presentation assignments.

The article touched on factors affecting obesity and elaborated on environmental, genetic and behavioral factors. The article also has come up with strategies to prevent the problem in future.