2.1. Study Design and Population
obesity, Obesity
OBESITY, HEART, OBESITY
This non-randomized clinical trial was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital (No. 2018–06–026-003). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants and parents (for all participants under the age of 18 years before the start of the study). This study followed the Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND) reporting guidelines [We enrolled 50 children with obesity and 22 normal-weight children aged 7–18 years from 7 August 2018, to 21 August 2019, and followed them up from 1 October 2018, to 6 November 2019. Data were analyzed from June 2020 to November 2022. Obesity was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 95th percentile from the age- and sex-specific Korean growth chart, whereas a BMI <85th percentile was defined as normal weight [Over eight weeks, participants with obesity underwent a weight-reduction program three times under the observation of research nurses, dietitians, exercise professionals, and pediatric clinicians at the hospital. In this program, every child with obesity received individualized and feasible lifestyle modifications designed by pediatric clinicians, dietitians, and exercise professionals. Research nurses monitored the participants to follow the recommendations every two weeks. A detailed method to produce individualized lifestyle interventions was applied according to previous protocols [