Home-based interventions targeting vegetable intake and liking among preschoolers: A systematic review

Consumption of vegetables is low among preschoolers and does not meetWHO recommendations. We conducted a systematic review of home-basedinterventions aimed at increasing vegetable consumption and liking amongpreschoolers. The main aim was to synthesize existing studies and to identifyrelevant features of successful interventions, especially looking at those withlong-lasting effects. A comprehensive search strategy was performed usingPsychinfo, PsychArticles, Psyndex, Medline and ERIC databases. Articlespublished until February 2020, regarding evaluation of vegetable intake and/orliking following an intervention, were included. Fourteen articles were selected,encompassing seven intervention strategies: familiarization with vegetable,tasting of the vegetable, intake of the vegetable, reward, information to parents about healthy eating, how-to-do tips to parents to improve healthy eating,intervention tailored to the characteristics of the family. Successful interventionson vegetable intake did not present systematic similarities in terms of type ofintervention, but were characterized by an intense intervention (highfrequency/length ratio). Successful interventions on vegetable liking mainlyincluded a small reward. Interestingly, the few studies including a long-termfollow-up found persistent positive effects. Despite interesting and promisingoutcomes, the present review highlighted a number of methodological issuesthat limited the generalisability of findings. Such limitations are discussed,together with outlets for future directions concerning this research topic.