How Do Parents Influence The Development Of Food Neophobia Among Young Children?

Studies have shown that food-related behaviors and attitudes learned at a young age track through childhood and into adulthood. Food neophobia (fear of the new) appears to be a natural evolutionary response which results in young children initially rejecting a new food. According to Birch (1999) neophobia changes with age and is minimal in infancy, increases in early childhood and then declines to adulthood. We can learn to prefer a food, especially if eating a food is followed by a positive post-ingestive consequence (for example, pleasant taste, or feeling of fullness) or is associated with a positive social context (for example, birthday parties). However, food aversions can also be formed as a result of negative post-ingestive consequence. Parents influence the development of the early food preferences of their children in a number ways, beginning with how they choose to feed their baby. Learned food preferences are related to frequency of exposure to a food as well. Parental feeding practices including the use of sweet treats to ‘reward’ good behavior or ‘bribes’ to encourage children to ‘clean their plate’ can have negative consequences on food preferences.

Keywords: aversion, neophobia, eating, food, children, consequences

According to Dr. Jane Scott

First, young children have a preference for foods that taste sweet and salty and tend to reject those that tastes sour and bitter. An infant’s preference for sweet and salty as well as dislike for sour and bitter is shown through reflexive responses. Children tend to make a sour face when tasting something sour and bitter. The opposite is done for sweet and salty foods. Caregivers interpret this as a child’s dislike or like of a food and use this as a method of determining future feedings. However, reflexive responses are not an accurate predictor in children’s food