PONE-D-21-14627

Effects of aerobic exercise and resistance exercise on physical indexes and cardiovascular risk factors in obese and overweight school-age children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. CHEN,

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Kind regards,

Yuan-Pin Hsu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is a very well written paper about the role of physical exercise in obese children. Childhood obesituy is a huge public health disease and sport should be adequately prescribed in this category of subjects. This is an hot topic in literature, so it is absolutely a welcome article.

I congratulate you for your method section and for your tables and figures, very well done.

I have only minor suggestions:

- pay attention to minor grammar signs (i.e. the comma between VO2peak and triglycerides in abstract section; the arrow in Figure 1)

- in results section of abstract, try to be more coincise and not to write all those numbers in brackets: so, your results will shine

- in introduction, I suggest the following reference (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40292-019-00352-2): not only child are obese, but almost half of their parents classified their weight status incorrectly!

- in discussion, I suggest the following reference (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32512767/), to stress the concept of the benefits of sport in several disease, such as obesity: not everyone know that sport is so good!

Reviewer #2: This systematic review aims to assess the effects of aerobic and resistance exercise on physical indexes, such as body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage, and cardiovascular risk factors in school-age children who are overweight or obese.

The topic is very attractive and relevant; however, some issues should be addressed:

- The English language needs to be improved.

- Abstract: a short background clarifying the importance of the study question should be demonstrated.

- Conclusion: This section does not demonstrate new information. It is known that both AE and RE improve these parameters. The authors have to compare between the two types of exercise.

- Introduction: The authors should focus on the novelty and importance of the study in this section. Discuss, what is the difference between this study and other previous studies.

- Methods: How the data were analyzed in detail?

- Conclusion: In the conclusion section pleases highlight better the scientific/clinical relevance of your work. Please provide a clear “research message” of the importance of this paper in the scientific community.

Reviewer #3: This is a very interesting study about effect of exercise on chilhood obesity

Figure 2 needs to be explained more about colours and signs.

in page 14 in the first section (study selection and Eligibility criteria) last sentence is incomplete.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Walid Kamal Abdelbasset

Reviewer #3: No

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Effects of aerobic exercise and resistance exercise on physical indexes and cardiovascular risk factors in obese and overweight school-age children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PONE-D-21-14627R1

Dear Dr. CHEN,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Yuan-Pin Hsu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thanks for you revisions and your answer!

Now the manuscript has improved and I think is ready to be published.

Reviewer #2: All elements of the study are well-presented. No additional revisions are required. I suggest accept this manuscript for publication in the current version.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Walid Kamal Abdelbasset