Journal of Obesity & Metabolic Syndrome

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Korean J Obes 2013; 22(3): 167-176

Published online September 30, 2013

Copyright © Korean Society for the Study of Obesity.

An Analysis of Research on the Impact of School-Based Physical Education for Preventing Students' Obesity: Systematic Review and Meta Analysis

Ooksang Cho*, Sumin Cho(1)

Department of Physical Education, Korea National Sport University, Seon Obesity Clinic(1)

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background: The purpose of this the study was to investigate the findings of previous research studies that focus on the effectiveness of school-based interventions on childhood and adolescent obesity.
Methods: Initially, 1,617 studies that were conducted in South Korea, United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand were collected. Finally 14 studies were selected for a systematic review of literature and meta analysis.
Results: The findings of the present study suggest that school-based physical education has had a positive impact on students’ obesity. However, calculated Effect Size (ES) from the meta analysis shows that the impact of school-based physical education was not significant.
Conclusion: According to this study, we may conclude that it is necessary to reform the physical education curriculum in schools to improve the effectiveness of preventing obesity.

Keywords: School-based physical education, Obesity, Curriculum

Fig. 1. Data collection process.
Fig. 2. Mathematical formulas for calculating effect size.
Fig. 3. Variables for children obesity measurement and numbers of studies.

Number of references for systematic review and meta analysis



Results of selected studies and calculated effect size



Results of studies that provided participants' physical conditions and calculated ES


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