Trial reportPublic health nutrition2021
A 6-week healthy eating intervention with family engagement improves food knowledge and preferences but not dietary diversity among urban preschool children in Sri Lanka.
Trial report in Public health nutrition, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interventions for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in children aged five years and under.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Healthy eating interventions delivered in early childhood education and care settings for improving the diet of children aged six months to six years.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- The impact of dialogic reading-based nutrition education on preschool children's nutrition knowledge and dietary diversity: a quasi-experimental study.BMC public health · 2025Trial
- Salivary Amylase Gene Copy Number Relates with BMI Z-Score and with Response to Lifestyle Intervention for Children with Overweight and Obesity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Diets, Fruit and Vegetable Intake, and Nutritional Status in Sri Lanka: A Scoping Review.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Article
- Impact of MyPlate and the healthy highway program-based nutrition education intervention on preschoolers' knowledge and food choice.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Inducement of positive nutritional practices through health promotion campaigns among parents/caregivers in Albania.European journal of public health · 2024Article
- Healthy eating interventions delivered in early childhood education and care settings for improving the diet of children aged six months to six years.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Review
- A Narrative Review of Dietary Assessment Tools for Preschool-Aged Children in the Home Environment.Nutrients · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention (MCI) on children's dietary diversity and its impact pathway components of children's food knowledge and healthy food preferences.
designA 6-week cluster randomised controlled trial with a MCI consisting of child nutrition education plus family engagement through parental nutrition education, meal preparation and tasting was compared with two groups: single component intervention (SCI) of child nutrition education, and control, conducted during February to July 2018. Preschool centres were randomly assigned to one of the three arms. Children's food knowledge, healthy food preferences and dietary diversity scores were collected. Intervention effects were analysed using a pre-post analysis and a difference-in-difference model.
settingFourteen preschool centres in an urban area of Kurunegala, Sri Lanka.
participantsChild-parent dyads of children aged 4-6 years. Final analyses included 306 (for food knowledge and preferences) and 258 (for dietary diversity) dyads.
resultsMCI significantly influenced the impact pathways to children's dietary diversity by increasing children's food knowledge and healthy food preferences scores by 3·76 and 2·79 (P < 0·001), respectively, but not the dietary diversity score (P = 0·603), compared with the control arm. Relative to SCI, MCI significantly improved children's food knowledge score by 1·10 (P < 0·001), but no significant effects were noted for other outcome variables.
conclusionsImproved food knowledge and preferences require a positive food environment and time to develop into healthy eating behaviours. Research into dietary diversity should broaden to incorporate the contextual roles of the home and general food environments to more completely understand food choices of children.
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