Association between alcohol consumption and overweight in adolescents and young people: A systematic Review

Objective: To investigate the association between alcohol consumption and overweight among adolescents and young people. Data sources: Two searches were carried out in the PubMed database with the following descriptors: Adolescent, alcohol and obesity in the first and Body mass index and adolescence alcohol in the second. The filters used were: year of publication (from 2013 to 2017), presence of abstract and language (English, Portuguese or Spanish). Data synthesis: We selected 12 articles, all of which were analyzed in girls and boys and a large part collected the data in schools. Methodological varieties were observed among the studies, with various cut-off points being used to classify overweight, as well as different investigations to classify alcohol consumption. Of the twelve studies selected, three of them found a positive association between alcohol consumption and overweight, all of which were longitudinal studies. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the results between the association between alcohol consumption and overweight are conflicting. There was a positive association between alcohol consumption and overweight only in longitudinal studies, with variations between the sexes.