Nutrition education and its public health impact in Saudi Arabia: a systematic review

Inadequate nutritional awareness may lead to harmful eating habits and poor diet quality. Nutrition education interventions have been shown to improve nutritional knowledge and behaviors.

To assess the impact of nutrition education in Saudi Arabia, I reviewed relevant studies published between 2017 and 2024.

For the present systematic review, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were searched. A total of 12 relevant articles published between January 2017 and January 2024 were identified; from the findings of these studies, the effectiveness of nutrition education in Saudi Arabia was assessed.

The studies reviewed included children, adolescents, and adults in various regions of Saudi Arabia, with study durations ranging from 2 months to 2 years. In addition to changes in BMI and eating behaviors, four interventions showed significant improvement of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and body image satisfaction, as well as improvements in nutritional knowledge and eating habits. Despite a lack of statistically significant outcomes, five studies documented positive changes and beneficial impacts. Another study reported improved attitudes and behaviors toward healthy diets among teenagers, as well as improvements in nutritional understanding and dietary practices among school staff and students. However, one study revealed that its nutritional intervention was not adequate in providing education about physical exercise and another found no discernible changes in adolescents' anthropometric measurements, physical activity, or harmful behaviors after an education intervention.

Nutrition education interventions especially school based done in Saudi Arabia, had significantly improved nutritional knowledge, physical activity, body image satisfaction and BMI.