BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Addressing food insecurity while promoting healthy body weights among children is a major public health challenge. Our objective is to examine longitudinal associations between food insecurity and obesity in US children aged 1 to 19 years. METHODS Sources for this research include PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus databases (January 2000 to February 2022). We included English language studies that examined food insecurity as a predictor of obesity or increased weight gain. We excluded studies outside the United States and those that only considered the unadjusted relationship between food security and obesity. Characteristics extracted included study design, demographics, methods of food security assessment, and anthropometric outcomes. RESULTS Literature searches identified 2272 articles; 13 met our inclusion criteria. Five studies investigated the relationship between food insecurity and obesity directly, whereas 12 examined its relationship with body mass index or body mass index z-score. Three studies assessed multiple outcomes. Overall, evidence of associations between food insecurity and obesity was mixed. There is evidence for possible associations between food insecurity and obesity or greater weight gain in early childhood, for girls, and for children experiencing food insecurity at multiple time points. Heterogeneity in study methods limited comparison across studies. CONCLUSIONS Evidence is stronger for associations between food insecurity and obesity among specific subgroups than for children overall. Deeper understanding of the nuances of this relationship is critically needed to effectively intervene against childhood obesity.

中文翻译：

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粮食不安全和儿童肥胖：系统评价。

背景和目标 在促进儿童健康体重的同时解决粮食不安全问题是一项重大的公共卫生挑战。我们的目标是研究美国 1 至 19 岁儿童的粮食不安全与肥胖之间的纵向关联。方法 本研究的来源包括 PubMed、CINAHL 和 Scopus 数据库（2000 年 1 月至 2022 年 2 月）。我们纳入了英语语言研究，这些研究将食品不安全作为肥胖或体重增加的预测因素。我们排除了美国以外的研究以及仅考虑食品安全与肥胖之间未经调整的关系的研究。提取的特征包括研究设计、人口统计、粮食安全评估方法和人体测量结果。结果 文献检索确定了 2272 篇文章；13 符合我们的纳入标准。五项研究直接调查了粮食不安全与肥胖之间的关系，而 12 项研究检查了其与体重指数或体重指数 z 分数的关系。三项研究评估了多种结果。总体而言，粮食不安全与肥胖之间关联的证据好坏参半。有证据表明，粮食不安全与肥胖或儿童早期体重增加、女孩和在多个时间点经历粮食不安全的儿童之间可能存在关联。研究方法的异质性限制了研究之间的比较。结论 与整体儿童相比，特定亚组中粮食不安全与肥胖之间关联的证据更强。迫切需要更深入地了解这种关系的细微差别，以有效干预儿童肥胖症。