Reduced Physical Activity and Increased Weight Status in Children and Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lifestyles of children and adolescents because of the restrictions imposed to contain the infection. This systematic review examined the possible reduction in children's and adolescents' physical activity and changes in their BMI and weight status. METHODS: A systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD42024589208) of English-language studies published up to 1 October 2024 in individuals with a mean age between 6 and 18 years that investigated physical activity data before and during or after the pandemic and focused on their BMI and weight status according to age, sex, and country making use of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus, identified 1040 possible articles. RESULTS: Following the PRISMA statement, 26 articles with a whole set of 138,737 children and adolescents were enclosed in the review. The majority of included articles were of moderate quality, as determined by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale adapted for observational studies. The studies found a decrease in PA, an increase in sedentary activities during/after the lockdown, and an increase in BMI and prevalence of overweight and obesity, especially in males and 8-11-year-olds. CONCLUSIONS: The interruption or restriction of outdoor physical activities and sports during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a more sedentary lifestyle among children and adolescents, contributing to an overall increase in BMI and obesity, with alarming implications for related health risks and other noncommunicable diseases. Therefore, the adverse effects of restrictive measures should be assessed when implementing public health strategies during pandemics.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.032 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".