A Systematic Review: The Impact of School-Based Cooking Classes on Food Literacy and Healthy Habits

Making better food decisions and having the confidence to create proper meals is crucial to bettering the health of children; however, in 2024, 1 in 5 children are considered obese, and about 25% of children aged 2-5 are considered obese in the United States. Cooking lessons have the potential to improve diet quality through teaching food literacy and reducing obesity in childhood, both of which are associated with improved mental health in adulthood. The aim of this systematic review is to investigate the impact of school-based experiential cooking classes on cooking skills, food literacy, and vegetable intake of children. A systematic review of PubMed, Scopus, and ScienceDirect was conducted for studies that compared the outcomes of children receiving cooking classes to a control group. Interventions included food preparation or cooking activities and took place on school premises. This systematic review includes 12 articles. Analysis showed a significant improvement in self-efficacy between the intervention and control groups of each study. In general, food knowledge also increased in most studies, although the extent to which it increased differed. Because of the varying results from each study, there was a small effect on vegetable intake in the intervention groups. Children's cooking programs result in noticeable improvements in cooking efficacy but small ones in vegetable intake. It is recommended that more interventions be conducted in the future to test the effectiveness of cooking classes. Future interventions should also use more consistent measurements of children's cooking confidence and healthy eating habits.