Abstract
There have been an increasing overweight and obesity in very anxious children. Furthermore, obesity is a condition that occurs due to the accumulation of excess or abnormal fat. This disorder is believed to be the most significant public health problem that affects children in the 21st century. This study aimed to examine the literature review, articles and research results analyzing the effectiveness of family or parent empowerment interventions through health education. Many research articles were searched on several databases such as PubMed and PreQuest, using the following keywords which include “family empowerment”, “overweight”, “obesity”, “health lifestyle”, “BMI”, “children”, “RCT” starting from 2014 to 2019. The searched results obtained 162 articles on family empowerment, overweight and obesity. Out of the 162 articles, 20 were selected that discussed family empowerment interventions for overweight and obesity. Critical analysis of the 20 articles was carried out based on design, sample, treatment, parameters, findings and conclusions. The literature review analysis showed that family empowerment interventions in the form of health education or promotion activities vary widely in terms of methods, components, duration, individuals involved, specificity and effectiveness. Furthermore, this intervention consists of training activities, courses, and teaching practices. Statistical analysis showed that all these methods significantly increased the ability and independence of the family in controlling overweight and obesity. In conclusion, health education interventions that are packaged in various programs are proven to significantly improve the ability of families or parents in preventing and controlling overweight and obesity in children.
Introduction
Significance for public health
Overweight and obesity are disorders that occur as a result of the accumulation of nutrients and fats which exceeds the normal body weight. The presence of this disorders in school children is a major problem because it continues into adulthood and act as risk factors for the incidence of metabolic and degenerative diseases. The Prevention and therapy of obesity in children is carried out by regulating their diet, increasing their physical activities and changing their pattern of behavior. One of the effective way of preventing overweight and obesity is through a family-based approach. Family empowerment interventions through Health Education and behavior change ultimately prevents and controls overweight and obesity. This study describes the strong relationship between family empowerment interventions and the efforts to prevent and control overweight and obesity.
Overweight and obesity is a chronic mismatch between food intake and the energy expended. It is a situation whereby food consumption exceeds the normal requirements for increasing body mass indexg. 1 The overweight and obesity in children increased drastically with the most recent estimates that indicate it's effect in approximately 340 million worldwide. 2 Furthermore, there have been an increasing overweight and obesity in anxious child. 3 The addition of cases overweight and obesity in children occurs in all geographical areas in the world, especially for residents living in urban areas both in developed and developing countries. The world health agency reported that total number of cases obesity for children is 340 million, of which 83.3% are in developing countries. Therefore, disorders have become the center of attention of WHO. 4 A foresight report on obesity on its estimated prevalence in the general population of the world and based on the current trend shows that in 2050, 60% of men and 50% of women will suffer from obesity. 5
Childhood is regarded as the most important period of life. health problems or illness that occurs during this period, would be brought to maturity or become a risk factor for the onset of diseases at adulthood. 6 The growth and development of children will be disrupted due to overweigth and. However, other health problems such as psychological disorders and cognitive dysfunctions also affects their development. Abnormalities in body weigth that accur in aduults already happened in children adolescent. Furthermore, previous studies has shown that 10% of school-age children in various parts of the world are obese. 7
Factors that causes obesity in children are very complex, namely biological, psychosocial, behavioral and cultural. The biopsychosocial framework for understanding obesity shows that the biological, psychosocial and behavioral factors greatly contribute to the weight status of children. These include the characteristics of the child, such as sex, age, birth weight, food intake, physical activity behavior, parenting styles and family characteristics, lifestyle, family, leisure and the environment. 8
The physical and phychologi effects of obesity are very detrimental to them and has the potential of continuing into adulthood. Short-term health risks of obese children include metabolic disorders such as high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, homeostatic glucose disorders, and syndrome metabolic. 9 In the long term, obesity in children tend to settle when the age of adulthood is attained, this puts the risk of morbidity such as diabetes, cardiovascular, stroke same cancer. In the psychological context of obesity, children generally experience poor body image and low self-esteem which often develops into anxiety and depression in adulthood. 10 Proactive strategies are needed when childhood has been advocated for, and this would help in prevention of overweight and obesity. 11 Examples of such strategies include promoting a health diet, physical activity, and the subtraction of screen time (watching TV, playing games). This is important in preventing obesity among children in the early period of life and it was also stated in the guidelines pioneered by WHO on the prevention of obesity in children. 12
The environment provides a great impact on all social, cognitive, behavioral and health aspects, including overweight and obesity. 13 Intervention at an early stage when the behavior and biology of the body is relatively unchanged, is capable of preventing overweight and obesity in children. 13 Furthermore, such interventions need to begin in the period of childhood, and parents have a stratergic role to play in shaping the health and healthy lifestyle of their children at an early age. 10 Parents need to watch their children's weight and eating behavior and control their food intake. Furthermore, the involvement caregivers in the stages of children is reported to enhance the long-term effects of weight control interventions. 10 Parents is closely related to a healthy lifestyle and choldren's behavior, family-based intervention are used to effectively prevent obesity by providing behavior changes for all family members. Theoretically, the process and results of family empowerment provide knowledge about the benefits and strategies of obesity prevention. 14
The most effective way of preventing and controlling overweight and obesity is through family empowerment. Social reality context, parents of children that are overweight and obese are able are able to control the risk factors for obesity through family empowermen. In other contexts the empowerment of family and parents include the parental knowledge about nutrition, its influence on the choices and structures of food, and eating patterns. Furthermore, it also include sedentary habits such as watching TV, movies, playing games, cellphones, and everything influential in the development of children's lifetime habits that contribute to normal weight, overweight or obesity. 5 The construction of other measured empowerment of parenting self-efficacy is important in maintaining obesity-risk behaviors. It also include the beliefs of parents if promotion and health lifestyle through by parents can effectively make a difference to their children. 15 The reason for choosing family empowerment interventions is because it is one of the most effective and successful methods of managing and preventing obesity in children. 16
Design and Methods
Strategy the search was identified from relevant electronic databases, namely PubMed and PreQuest. The lists of reference for all relevant articles were searched simple to further identify additional studies that may exist and have not been captured by search engines. In addition, the articles sought were limited to the last 5 years. Search strategies for English-language research articles that are relevant to this research topic were carried out using the following keywords, namely “family empowerment”, “overweight”, “obesity”, “health lifestyle”, “BMI”, “children”, “RCT”. This study analyzes family empowerment interventions to improve the ability of families in preventing and controlling overweight and obesity in children. Furthermore, the selection criteria was based on the PRISMA checklist and the study design used was RCT (randomized control trial). However, other quantitative studies (cross-sectional, laboratory-based observations, longitudinal) were not included.
Results and Discussions
In the beginning of the search, 13,056 articles were obtained (Figure 1). The proportion of articles (n=8145) was excluded because it was not relevant, and 4911 articles were filtered. Most of them (n=4751) were released at the time of review because they were still irrelevant. One hundred and sixty full text articles were read, while the remaining twenty- two were included in the analysis of this study because they are very relevant to the literature review and could be further analyzed. In general, the articles that were used as samples in this study were the results of a quasi-experimental design research with a pre-test and post-test control group, using the RCT approach (Table 1). The advantages of the quasy-experimental studies is that they are often carried out at the population level and not the individual level. Therefore, they are capable of covering a larger population. Quasi-experimental studies are considered more real because it shows the effectiveness of the real world and the intervention that is being implemented. 17 The samples used in this study were parents, children and health workers with a total number of 1335. Furthermore, the proportion of the sample in the intervention group was slightly more than the control group. Most of the studies did not provide intervention for the control group. From the 20 studies that have been reviewed, it was shown that majority of observations in the intervention group were always better than the control group.

Prisma flowchart.
A summary of the study intervention empowerment of families to prevent and control overweight and obesity in children based on RCTs.
The method of giving intervention was carried out with various health education programs, which include health education intervention, educational program, educational intervention, home based management, and participative health education,4,17-19 Furthermore, the components of the intervention were training activities, courses, and teaching practices. This Health Education approach was very important. Health Education does not only increases knowledge and skills but also improves long-term health and acts as a powerful tool in promoting health justice. 20 The media used in implementing the intervention include flipcharts, posters, books, and modules. The duration of administration of the research interventions varied widely, ranging from 6 weeks to 4 years.4,21 The parameters seen in the results of this study include increased ability and the family or parents independence in the prevention and control of overweight and obesity, by measuring several existing independent variables Some of the main variables in the prevention of obesity and obesity are organizations that regulate nutrition, behavior and lifestyle changes.22-24
The results of the research that were critically examined for the preparation of the literature review showed that the strategies needed to improve the ability and independence of families or parents in the prevention and control of overweight and obesity are health education and other approaches in the form of training activities, courses, teaching practices in the classroom, and using various media, such as flipcharts, posters, books, and modules.25-27 The socioeconomic backgrounds of families or parents are very diverse and it will greatly affect the effectiveness of prevention and control of overweight and obesity.28,29 From the 20 articles reviewed, it was shown that not all studies produced significant values on all parameters measured. Through family empowerment, parents or related stakeholders could optimize the health education program by modifying the methods of providing interventions and the media used, and relevant stakeholders to achieve optimal results.
Based on the analysis of the 20 articles, the participative Health Education method was recommended to be applied in all families in order to prevent overweight and obesity. This intervention has several advantages, which include 1) it occurred in a smaller scope such as the family level for it to be more effective, 2) the pattern of intervention could be flexible according to the situation of each household, 3) the media used varies greatly, and 4) the duration of the intervention was quite long (± 6 months) in order to guarantee the resistance of health behavior in the community.
Conclusions
Health education intervention activities that are packaged in various programs are proven to have an effect in increasing the ability of families or parents to significantly prevent and control overweight and obesity.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
The author is grateful to the Faculty of Public Health, Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Indonesia for their support and motivation during the writing of this article.
