The prevalence of obesity and overweight among Iranian population: an umbrella systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: The present umbrella systematic reviews and meta-analyses aim to determine the comprehensive prevalence of obesity and overweight across different age subgroups in Iran.

Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search across many databases, including Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar, to retrieve papers published until November 2023. The meta-analyses included in this study examined the prevalence of obesity and overweight in Iran. The current umbrella meta-analysis finally contained 24 meta-analyses. We evaluated the scientific reliability of the studies using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR2).

Results: The overall prevalence of overweight and obesity among the Iranian population was 18.38% (95% CI: 10.267, 26.496) and 10.91% (95% CI: 9.654, 12.177), respectively. The overall obesity prevalence in males was 9.93 (95%CI: 8.483, 11.388), and in females was 9.67% (95%CI: 8.317, 11.033). The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents was 12.43% (95% CI: 10.184, 14.683) and 6.51% (95% CI: 5.866, 7.157), and in adults, it was 27.39% (95% CI: 14.878, 39.914) and 17.20% (95% CI: 13.483, 20.919), respectively. Male children and adolescents had a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than females, but adult males had a lower prevalence than females.

Conclusion: This study presents the trend of obesity and overweight among the Iranian population. Since the trend of increasing overweight and obesity is alarming, policymakers and healthcare providers at the national and regional levels should design and implement preventive programs and interventions.