Food subsidy programs and the health and nutritional status of disadvantaged families in high income countries: a systematic review

Table 4 Nutritional and health outcomes associated with comprehensive food subsidy programs for children

First Author, Year Intervention, Participants	Health outcomes
Gunnell 2000[39]	Growth outcomes*
Intervention included either daily school feeding (SF) or family food packages weekly (FP) and two control groups with no food subsidy- families and school students	Mean, (SD)	I	C	p
	Height increase, cm	6.10(1.50)	5.56(1.45)	<0.0001
	Leg length increase, cm	4.98 (2.07)	4.87(2.25)	0.0006
	Trunk increase, cm	1.12 (2.17)	0.69 (2.23)	0.17
	Stature increases by method of feeding,†
Children aged 2–14 years	Mean (95%CI)	SF	FP
	Change in height (I-C), mm	6.7 (2.7-10.6)	2.0 (−0.7-4.8)
	Change in leg length (I-C),mm	7.2 (1.9-12.4)	2.3 (−1.5-6.2)
	Mortality
	Hazard ratio I vs C (95%CI)		p
	All causes	1.15 (0.7,1.7)	0.46
	CHD	1.62 (0.8,3.5)	0.21
	Cancer	0.69 (0.4,1.4)	0.30
	Non-smoking
	related cancer	0.59 (0.2,2.0)	0.59

* Adjusted for initial anthropometry and location.
†Adjusted for initial anthropometry, location, age, sex, duration of follow-up, household food expenditure, diet intake, family size, social class.

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