Integrative Review : Obesity And Obesity

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Integrative Review Synthesis The number of obese and overweight individuals throughout the world is rapidly growing. There are many factors that contribute to the reason obesity has become such an epidemic. The purpose of this integrative review is to review and critically appraise the literature on the socioeconomic factors that influence obesity in a community. After doing so, one is able to better understand the strengths, weaknesses, gaps and inconsistencies within the literature. Synthesis of the Literature Many articles where found by the investigator about obesity but there was a lack of research when it come to nursing research done about this topic. The articles each pertained certain strengths and weaknesses which can be…show more content…
For example, one of those five articles was written by Dinescu, Horn, Duncan, & Turkheimer (2016), found that a low education and income is associated with having a higher body mass index (BMI). Another major strength was that all the articles used similar socioeconomic factors. For example, the article written by Whitton, Ma, Bastian, Chan & Chew (2014) asked participants their gender, age, ethnicity, education, monthly income, and BMI. This was a common theme among the literature found. Weaknesses By far the largest weakness in the literature was that there was a lack of nursing research found on how socioeconomic factors influence obesity. One major weakness in the literature is that the findings are not able to be generalized. Another aspect that limits the generalizability of the literature was the location in which the research studies were conducted. Only four out of the seven articles were conducted in the United States, this limits where the findings can be applied to. The majority of the articles found used purposive sampling which looked at specific populations in terms of socioeconomic factors. Another weakness is that the majority of the articles found by the investigator had a cross-sectional design. The looks at one period of time and doesn’t allow the investigator to see trends that have developed over time. Gaps and Inconsistencies Throughout the literature found there are clear gaps and
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