• Motahar Heidari-Beni and Roya Kelishadi.
• Department of Nutrition, Child Growth and Development Research Center, Research Institute for Primordial Prevention of Non-Communicable Disease, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2019 Sep 1; 22 (9): 511-515.

IntroductionWeight disorders in childhood are considered as a global health problem with several adverse health effects. The objective of this study is to review available studies on the prevalence of overweight, obesity and underweight in Iranian pediatric population.MethodsArticles published in the international and national journals were collected via the electronic research engines including MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Scopus, Scientific Information Database (SID), and Magiran about the prevalence of childhood overweight, obesity and underweight in all regions of Iran. Only population-based studies were included.ResultsLarge variations were documented in the prevalence of weight disorders in children of different age and sex groups living in various regions of Iran. Our findings revealed increasing trend of childhood obesity and overweight, but this change was not very sharp. In addition, underweight is still one of the main nutritional problems in children of some areas including Sistan-vaBaluchistan and Kerman provinces.ConclusionSimilar to many other developing countries, double burden of nutritional disorders exists in children living in some parts of Iran. While till now most health policies and educational programs related to children's nutrition in Iran had focused on underweight and malnutrition, more attention should be paid to the problem of excess weight.© 2019 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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