Published -
October 31, 2025 Background
This report was written for the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) by the Ending Youth Violence Lab (the Lab) in April-June 2025. In it the Lab provide advice on how, in their view, YEF should approach establishing and evaluating a nutrition programme designed to support young people at risk of getting caught up in violence.
Why we commissioned scoping a programme for nutrition
Our research suggests that better nutrition (both supplementation and dietary changes) can reduce aggression and antisocial behaviour among young people, but the quality and strength of evidence is mixed. Evidence is strongest on the impact of nutrition interventions on antisocial behaviour and weakest on their impact on violent crime (with moderately strong evidence for aggression). YEF commissioned the Ending Youth Violence Lab to explore options for an impact evaluation. In this report, the Lab summarise the key evidence gaps, and then provide recommendations on both interventions and evaluation designs, as well as the commissioning process.
Conclusion
The Lab has recommend that YEF fund a trial exploring the impact of supplementation in the secure estate. They believe that this is likely to be feasible and deliverable within YEF’s time constraints, taking account of the complexity of running evaluations on the secure estate.
The Lab note that a trial testing dietary change (via education and nudges rather than changes to food provision) alongside supplementation would have greater short-term and long-term impact, but that this option is more complex from both delivery and evaluation standpoints.
Download report
Download Scoping a programme of work for Youth Endowment Fund on nutrition