Association of anthropometric parameter with myopia in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE

To systematically evaluate the association between anthropometric parameter and myopia in children and adolescents.

METHODS

PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO, Embase, CNKI, CBM, WanFang Data, and VIP databases were searched from inception to June, 2025. We collected cross-sectional studies on the association between anthropometric parameter and myopia in children and adolescents aged 0-25 years, including body mass index (BMI) and weight-adjusted waist index (WWI). After independently screening the literature, extracting the data and evaluating the risk of bias in the included studies by 2 researchers, meta-analysis was performed using Stata 18.0 software.

RESULTS

A total of 18 cross-sectional studies were included, from which 1,505,099 participants were analyzed. Meta-analysis results suggested a positive relationship between anthropometric parameters and myopia. The pooled OR for overweight was 1.27 (95%CI: 1.08 ~ 1.51; I = 81.6%; P < 0.001). After excluding outliers, the pooled OR for overweight was 1.14 (95% CI: 1.13 ~ 1.15; I = 0.0%; P = 0.444). The pooled OR for obesity was 1.25 (95%CI: 1.12 ~ 1.39; I = 88.3%; P < 0.001). The results demonstrated inconsistency when subgroup analyses were performed based on age, geographic regions, visual acuity measurement methods, sample characteristics, whether covariates were adjusted in the original data, and whether one of 3 main confounders (parental myopia, outdoor time, or near work) was controlled. Results of meta-regression analysis showed that the publication year was not a source of heterogeneity across overweight, obesity and BMI/WWI groups. Subgroup evaluation revealed that a pooled value was 1.08 (95%CI: 1.00 ~ 1.18; I = 88.9%; P < 0.001) for BMI in BMI/WWI group. The results of Egger's test also suggested that there was no significant publication bias in overweight, obesity, and BMI/WWI groups, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings support that anthropometric parameter was significantly associated with myopia in children and adolescents. However, given the limitations of the included cross-sectional studies, prospective studies are warranted to further investigate this issue.