Purpose: While the health benefits of a high fruit and vegetable consumption are well known and considerable work has attempted to improve intakes, increasing evidence also recognises a distinction between fruit and vegetables, both in their impacts on health and in consumption patterns. Increasing work suggests health benefits from a high consumption specifically of vegetables, yet intakes remain low, and barriers to increasing intakes are prevalent making intervention difficult. A systematic review was undertaken to identify from the published literature all studies reporting an intervention to increase intakes of vegetables as a distinct food group. Methods: Databases—PubMed, PsychInfo and Medline—were searched over all years of records until April 2015 using pre-specified terms. Results: Our searches identified 77 studies, detailing 140 interventions, of which 133 (81 %) interventions were conducted in children. Interventions aimed to use or change hedonic factors, such as taste, liking and familiarity (n = 72), use or change environmental factors (n = 39), use or change cognitive factors (n = 19), or a combination of strategies (n = 10). Increased vegetable acceptance, selection and/or consumption were reported to some degree in 116 (83 %) interventions, but the majority of effects seem small and inconsistent. Conclusions: Greater percent success is currently found from environmental, educational and multi-component interventions, but publication bias is likely, and long-term effects and cost-effectiveness are rarely considered. A focus on long-term benefits and sustained behaviour change is required. Certain population groups are also noticeably absent from the current list of tried interventions.
CITATION STYLE
Appleton, K. M., Hemingway, A., Saulais, L., Dinnella, C., Monteleone, E., Depezay, L., … Hartwell, H. (2016, April 1). Increasing vegetable intakes: rationale and systematic review of published interventions. European Journal of Nutrition. Dr. Dietrich Steinkopff Verlag GmbH and Co. KG. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-015-1130-8
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