European Journal of Nutrition & Food Safety

Food adulteration poses a serious and persistent threat to public health worldwide, with consequences that are especially acute among school-age children, whose dietary habits, limited nutritional awareness, and exposure to diverse food environments make them particularly vulnerable. Despite growing regulatory attention to food safety, awareness of adulteration risks and their health consequences remains inadequate across many communities, particularly in low- and middle-income settings. Multimedia-based educational interventions, encompassing video, animation, interactive digital tools, mobile applications, gamified platforms, and social media, have emerged as promising mechanisms for enhancing food safety awareness in school populations by exploiting the cognitive and motivational affordances of diverse media formats. This critical review synthesises peer-reviewed literature published between 2000 and 2026, drawing on evidence from the fields of food science, educational technology, health communication, and public health. A comprehensive search of the peer-reviewed literature was undertaken across a range of electronic bibliographic databases. The primary databases consulted were Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. The review examines the theoretical underpinnings of multimedia health education — including the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, social cognitive theory, the health belief model, and constructivist learning approaches — before providing a typological analysis of intervention formats and a critical appraisal of the available evidence on their effectiveness. The evidence indicates that well-designed multimedia interventions can produce meaningful improvements in students' knowledge of food adulterants, their health effects, and basic detection techniques. However, the field is characterised by heterogeneous methodologies, short follow-up periods, insufficient attention to behaviour change mechanisms, and limited focus on contextual factors such as the digital divide, teacher capacity, and cultural specificity. The review identifies key gaps in the research base and advances recommendations for researchers, policymakers, curriculum developers, and educators seeking to design and implement evidence-informed, contextually appropriate multimedia food adulteration education programmes.