How effective are healthy eating interventions delivered in early childhood education and care settings?: A Cochrane Review summary with commentary
Key Points
- Impact statement: This Cochrane Corner commentary describes the findings from a Cochrane review focused on healthy eating interventions delivered in early childhood education and care settings. It connects the findings from the Cochrane review to relevant research at that RTI International researchers in the fields of healthy eating, nutrition, and early childhood health. It aims to make these findings and the related research more widely accessible.
- Worldwide, poor diet quality is associated with noncommunicable disease morbidity and mortality; early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings can serve as important places to encourage children to engage in healthy behaviors, including healthy eating.
- This Cochrane Review examined evidence for effectiveness of healthy eating interventions delivered in ECEC settings for improving child dietary quality and health.
- Findings of the systematic review indicate that ECEC-based healthy eating interventions may improve child diet quality slightly, potentially increasing fruit consumption, and may have favorable effects on child weight and risk of being overweight or obese. However, the authors caution that the certainty of evidence is moderate to very low because of considerable heterogeneity, potential publication bias, and high/unclear risks of bias.
- The commentary elaborates upon the conclusions of the Cochrane Review authors and suggests that future trials examine the impact of specific intervention components and focus on populations in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
Abstract
This brief summarizes the published Cochrane Review, “Healthy Eating Interventions Delivered in Early Childhood Education and Care Settings for Improving the Diet of Children Aged Six Months to Six Years,” by S. L. Yoong, M. Lum, L. Wolfenden, J. Jackson, C. Barnes, A. E. Hall, S. McCrabb, N. Pearson, C. Lane, J. Z. Jones, E. Nolan, L. Dinour, T. McDonnell, D. Booth, and A. Grady (https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD013862.pub3). The Cochrane Review examines evidence for effectiveness of healthy eating interventions delivered in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings for improving child dietary quality and health among children aged between 6 months and 6 years. Review authors conclude that ECEC-based healthy eating interventions may improve child diet quality slightly, potentially increasing fruit consumption (moderate-certainty evidence) and may have favorable effects on child weight (high-certainty evidence) and risk of being overweight or obese (moderate-certainty evidence). Overall, the review supports healthy eating interventions delivered in ECEC settings on several outcome measures; however, the certainty of evidence is moderate to very low because of considerable heterogeneity, potential publication bias, and high/unclear risks of bias. The review and original commentary acknowledge the limitations of the evidence, suggesting that future trials examine the impact of specific intervention components and focus on populations in low- and lower-middle-income countries. The original commentary also describes other relevant research focused on healthy eating interventions in ECEC settings that have shown an impact.
© 2026 RTI International. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Meet the Experts
Navigate to
Kristen C. Giombi
