Effectiveness of healthy eating interventions among children: A quantitative systematic review

Abstract

The early years of children's lives are critical because this period entails rapid growth and development in food preferences (Santrock, 2017). Studies have shown that children's preferences for a greater food variety is related to higher intakes of fruits and vegetables (Drewnowski, 1997), a lower risk of chronic diseases (Kant et al., 1995), and ample intakes of nutrients (Falciglia et al., 2009; Tucker, 2001). However, nutrition surveys among children aged 12 years and younger reported insufficient intakes of fruits, vegetables, and important nutrients (Hall et al., 2009; Kant & Graubard, 2003). Furthermore, the increasing rates of childhood obesity and overweight children implied the importance of developing early healthy eating habits for the subsequent developments of children (World Health Organization, 2017). Parents are major influencers and contributors of eating habits among children as they play important roles in health promotion and healthy eating through parental feeding goals and mealtime practices (Musher-Eizenman & Kiefner, 2013). These feeding goals and mealtime practices are underpinned by social contexts that shape

The extent and nature of children’s involvement in food practice research: a scoping review of qualitative studies

“…Children's food practices and the determinants of their nutritional health are, therefore, drawn from experimental or observational studies from predominantly adult researcher perspectives (5,6) . These investigations are then used as the evidence to inform the development and implementation of a range of strategies, policies and programmes across several settings that aim to modify and govern children's food (7,8) . Increasingly, there is ample evidence for involving target groups in research, in this case children, to provide more contextually relevant insights into their unique worlds.…”