Obesity and Arterial Hypertension in Children: Systematic Review

Overweight, obesity, and arterial hypertension in children have become a serious and growing public health problem in this group. However, there is a lack of updated data to determine whether these conditions correlate. This systematic review was designed and developed following the “Preferred Reporting Items in Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses” (PRISMA) statement, performed through a bibliographic search in the SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine), and LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature) databases. Finally, 7 studies were included in the quantitative analysis based on 5,364 subjects considered, and 14 studies were used for the qualitative analysis contributing to the discussion on the investigated topic. The presence of pre-AHT and early-stage AHT was high in all the studies, mostly in overweight and obese children, which, through the results, demonstrate that these values and the increase in BP are closely related to the increase in BMI (SciELO Scientific Electronic Library Online), MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine); LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature).