A Review of Experiential School-Based Culinary Interventions for 5–12-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Cooking is an essential skill and the acquisition of cooking skills at an early age is associated with higher diet quality. This review aimed to describe the characteristics of school-based experiential culinary interventions and to determine the value of these to child (5–12 years) health outcomes. Interventions were eligible for inclusion if they took place in school during school hours, included ≥3 classes, and had a control group. Interventions published up to May 2021 were included. The databases searched were PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE, and the grey literature was searched for published reports. The search strategy yielded 7222 articles. After screening, five published studies remained for analysis. Four studies targeted children aged 7–11 years, and one targeted children aged 5–12 years. The interventions included food tasting, food gardening, and/or nutrition education alongside experiential cooking opportunities. Improvements were evident in self-reported attitudes toward vegetables, fruits, and cooking, and two studies reported small objective increases in vegetable intake. School-based experiential cookery interventions have the potential to positively impact health-related aspects of the relationship children develop with food. However, a greater number of long-term methodologically rigorous interventions are needed to definitively quantify the benefits of such interventions.

Preparing on-site school lunches improves adolescents’ eating habits: A one-year follow-up

“…A meta-analysis found that an effective strategy for facilitating healthy eating among primary school children enhances experiential learning (Dudley et al, 2015). A literature review showed that school-based experiential cookery interventions may impact health-related aspects among children positively (Bennett et al, 2021). Increasing opportunities to cook and to be involved in meal preparation may therefore be an effective strategy because it can facilitate healthy eating habits among students with low interest in that area.…”

A critical review of children's culinary nutrition interventions, the methodologies used and their impact on dietary, psychosocial and wellbeing outcomes

“…Searches were limited to articles published in the English language and peer‐reviewed journal articles. The pragmatic approach that supported the database searching utilised four relatively recently published reviews on varying aspects/outcomes of children's cooking interventions (Bennett et al, 2021; Hasan et al, 2019; Hersch et al, 2014; Ng et al, 2021); these reviews provided an initial outline of 50 articles relating to children's cooking interventions. All articles were screened initially using titles for relevancy and duplication.…”

“…Due to the increase in interventions in recent years, it is essential to understand their effectiveness and whether there have been methodological improvements so that effective interventions could be implemented widely. More recent reviews have focused on cooking classes and multicomponent interventions (Hasan et al, 2019), school‐based interventions (Bennett et al, 2021) and hands‐on practical preparation (Ng et al, 2021), and on mainly nutrition and food‐based outcomes. Therefore, this review aimed to undertake an investigation of the different methodological approaches used in a broad range of children's culinary nutrition interventions and experiments.…”

Development of food literacy in children and adolescents: implications for the design of strategies to promote healthier and more sustainable diets

“… 83–86 Children who enjoy the experience of shared family mealtimes are reported to be more positive about trying new foods in a nonmodeling context. 71 , 87 , 88 In addition, research found that young adults’ present commensality is positively associated with their recalled frequencies of childhood family meals. 89 In the same study, recalling mothers’ home cooking during childhood was also a significant predictor of young adults’ cooking for themselves in the present day.…”

“… 145 Culinary interventions in the school setting have been associated with improvement in cooking skills, healthier eating habits, and positive changes in anthropometric measurements. 88 , 146 However, the optimal age to acquire and retain different types of food preparation skills is still unknown. 20 …”