Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Nov 19:13:1700254.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1700254. eCollection 2025.

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

Sarah N Alsharif  1
Affiliations

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

Sarah N Alsharif. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: 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.

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

Methods: 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.

Results: 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.

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

Keywords: Saudi; education; impact; interventions; nutrition; review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram for the inclusion and exclusion criteria of articles.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Espinosa-Salas S, Gonzalez-Arias M. Behavior modification for lifestyle improvement. Treasure Island, FL: StatPearls Publishing; (2024). - PubMed
    1. Aboul-Enein BH, Bernstein J, Neary AC. Dietary transition and obesity in selected Arabic speaking countries: a review of the current evidence. East Mediterr Health J. (2017) 22:763–70. doi: 10.26719/2016.22.10.763, PMID: - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bodirsky BL, Dietrich JP, Martinelli E, Stenstad A, Pradhan P, Gabrysch S, et al. The ongoing nutrition transition thwarts long-term targets for food security, public health and environmental protection. Sci Rep. (2020) 10:19778. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-75213-3, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Neuhouser ML. The importance of healthy dietary patterns in chronic disease prevention. Nutr Res. (2019) 70:3–6. doi: 10.1016/j.nutres.2018.06.002, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization . Noncommunicable diseases. Geneva: World Health Organization (2023). Available online at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources