A scoping review of community-based summer interventions with a nutrition assistance component aiming to improve children’s weight-related outcomes

Background: Children, particularly those from low-income families, experience increased weight gain and food insecurity in the summer months. Summer interventions that include nutrition assistance through free or subsidized food, or money for food, are well-positioned to address food insecurity and obesity. However, there is no comprehensive review of the characteristics and findings of summer interventions that aimed to improve children’s weight-related outcomes, including food security, dietary intake, physical activity, and body weight. This study aimed to describe the characteristics and findings of summer interventions with a nutrition component that included child weight-related outcomes. Methods: For this scoping review, CINAHL, ERIC, Ovid Medline, and Scopus databases were searched using the terms, “summer,” “out of school,” “food,” “nutrition,” “meal,” “lunch,” or “insecurity.” Three independent reviewers screened manuscripts for eligibility. Results: Thirteen manuscripts were identified. The majority (n = 10, 77%) of summer interventions offered activities for nutrition education and/or physical activity engagement or education in addition to nutrition assistance. Most interventions (69%) were provided through summer camps or school, and 60% provided nutrition assistance in the form of free meals or snacks through the Summer Food Service Program. Food insecurity was the least studied outcome. The associations between these summer interventions and children’s weight-related outcomes were examined using various measures and study designs, with only three randomized controlled studies, two of which had inadequately powered samples. Some quasi-experimental studies documented the positive associations between intervention participation and fruit and vegetable intake, moderate to vigorous physical activity, and BMI z-scores or percentiles, but the findings were inconsistent. Conclusions: Further studies with more rigorous designs and adequately powered samples are needed to evaluate the effects of multicomponent summer interventions with nutrition assistance to maximize the intervention benefits for children’s weight-related health and equity. Clinical trial number: Not applicable.