Children's Food Preferences: A Longitudinal Analysis
Section snippets
Sample
Child/mother pairs (n=70) were participants in a longitudinal study of children from age 2 months to 8 years (96 months). As described elsewhere (18), (36), children were recruited from birth records and personal referrals; all children were white and healthy at birth; parents were well educated and were primarily middle- or upper-socioeconomic status. Retention of subjects in the study was good (37); only 2 subjects were lost to follow-up in the last 3-year period (children ages 6 to 8 years);
Food Preference Questionnaires
Correlations between children's responses on the 90-item Abbreviated Food Preference Questionnaire and mothers’ reports of children's preferences on the same 90 items (selected from the Food Preference Questionnaire) were highly significant (P≤.0001). Thus, we considered mothers’ reports an accurate measure of children's food preferences and used the 196-item Food Preference Questionnaire for all further analyses.
Although mothers reported that as a group children liked more than 60% of the 196
Discussion
This study is unique because it describes young children's food preferences longitudinally over more than 5 years, rather than at a single point in time (8), (22), (28), (29), (30), (32), (33), as in cross sectional studies. Other than exposure studies that lasted a few weeks (11), (12), (13), (14), (15), the only other longitudinal study related to food preferences was our study on the characteristics of “picky eaters” in this same sample of children (26). The current study also is unique
Applications
■ Health professionals can help mothers realize the impact of children's early food preferences on their food preferences in the elementary school years. Because mothers face many child-feeding challenges during these early years (eg, decreased growth rate/decreased appetite, the “terrible twos” when children seek increased independence and autonomy, transient “picky eating” behaviors, limited tooth development), health professionals must provide mothers with effective strategies for coping
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