Challenges of Childhood Obesity Interventions in the United Kingdom and Lessons for Public Health Practitioners in the Global South: A Scoping Review

Childhood obesity is a major health challenge around the world and has been linked to several health and non-health risks. Although significant efforts are in place in the United Kingdom (UK) to reduce the burden of the disease, these efforts suffer fundamental shortcomings that potentially undermine their effectiveness. Drawing upon this understanding, this study examines the existing intervention challenges to childhood obesity interventions in the UK, with the goal of informing improved programmatic solutions in the global south (Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, Asia excluding Japan, Israel, and South Korea, with Oceania without New Zealand and Australia). A search of five popular health databases was carried out yielding 19 research articles. The study article period is between 2013 and 2023. A scoping review methodology was implemented on the selected reports following a critical appraisal. Children between the ages of 3 to 11 years were considered. Findings suggest that intervention implementers focus mainly on executing school-based programs but fail to involve stakeholders from the wider society which consistently leads to failure. This review also found body mass index to be a popular measure for weight gain or loss. Nevertheless, this measure has been consistently criticized in literature, thus subjecting the accuracy of the results of interventions to serious criticism. Overall, for intervention implementers in developing countries to carry out successful interventions, lessons around perceived standardized but possibly inaccurate procedures and measures must be carefully considered.