Associations among Active Commuting to School and Prevalence of Obesity in Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Active commuting to school (ACS) seems to be one of the means to increase physical activity (PA) levels in youth, but it is unclear if ACS reduces the prevalence of obesity, protecting and improving their health. Most of the previous research has been conducted on children or youth (i.e., children with adolescents together), and there is a paucity of research in adolescents only. The purpose of this review was to assess the association between ACS with overweight/obesity parameters in adolescents aged 11 to 19 years. We used PubMed, WOS and SPORTDiscus as electronics databases. All steps of the process followed the recommendations of the PRISMA flow-diagram. Fifteen articles (68.18%) found a consistent association between ACS and body composition and seven studies (31.82%) showed no differences in body composition between active and passive commuters to school. Fourteen studies observed that active commuters to school had a more favorable body composition and one study reported that ACS was associated with unfavourable body composition. ACS could be the steppingstone to improve PA promotion in adolescence but whether ACS is associated with improved body composition and prevention of obesity requires further research.