Research ReportChildren eat what they are served: the imprecise regulation of energy intake
Section snippets
Subjects and methods
Seventeen preschool children 4–6 years of age, 6 girls (mean age+standard deviation, 4.4+0.5 years) and 11 boys (4.8+0.7 years), were studied. The children attended 2 day-care centers located in Ithaca, NY, where they consumed three meals per day (two snacks and lunch) in a relaxed and non-coercive atmosphere. All were healthy, without any chronic disease that will interfere with their normal food intake and had normal body weight (between 25th and 50th percentile of the standard growth curves)
Daily intake
Because the food intakes of children from the 2 day-care centers were not statistically significantly different, the data from the two schools were combined. All the results are reported as a mean+standard deviation if not stated differently. The results of 16 children, 5 girls and 11 boys, with mean age 4.7+0.7 years were included in the analysis. One girl was excluded from further analysis because she developed an acute respiratory infection during the study. Her energy intake dropped below
Discussion
The present study demonstrates that children, like adults, show little evidence of the regulation energy intake either at the meal or within 24 h. Instead, the major determinant of energy intake in children appears to be the amount served to them by their caregivers. These results are consistent with the observation of Rolls et al. (2000) who showed that the amount of food 5-year-old children consumed was proportional to the amount they were served, although they did not observe this effect in
Acknowledgements
Supported by USDA Grant 94-34324-0987.
We would especially like to thank the children, their parents, and the teachers of the Under Cottonwood Day Care Center and the Coddington Child Care Center of Ithaca, NY for their fantastic cooperation and support for this study.
This study was submitted as part of a PhD degree awarded to GM by Cornell University, 2000.
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Cited by (57)
Appetite self-regulation declines across childhood while general self-regulation improves: A narrative review of the origins and development of appetite self-regulation
2021, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :A typical interpretation of the results is that compensation ability tends to decline with age (Kral et al., 2007). A second conclusion from the evidence is that although younger children compensate better than older children, it is more likely that children, even younger children, will only partially compensate and hence overeat or not adjust according to daily intake (Carnell et al., 2017; Hanley & Hutcheon, 2010; Kral et al., 2007; Levitsky et al., 2017; Mrdjenovic & Levitsky, 2005; Remy et al., 2015). For example, Smethers et al. (Smethers et al., 2019a; Smethers et al., 2019b) found that over a 5-day period, preschool children did not adjust their intake when portion size or energy density was changed.
Preschool children's sensitivity to teacher-served portion size is linked to age related differences in leftovers
2017, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :The practice of self-serving is not explicitly promoted amongst parents and carers in Singapore, who usually serve portions to children from a number of communal dishes. A strong predictor of how much a child will consume for a given meal or snack, both at home and in childcare, is the amount of food they are served, regardless of whether this is determined by a parent, non-parent caregiver, or themselves (Branen et al., 1997; DiSantis et al., 2013; Johnson et al., 2014; Mrdjenovic & Levitsky, 2005; Savage et al., 2012), which means that when a child is served more they tend to eat more. Presumably this occurs because children often finish, or almost finish the food in a serving, through this is currently unknown.
Portion sizes for children are predicted by parental characteristics and the amounts parents serve themselves
2014, American Journal of Clinical NutritionThe control of eating: Is there any function for satiation and satiety?
2013, Satiation, Satiety and the Control of Food Intake
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David A. Levitsky is also at the Department of Psychology, Cornell University.