Sensory education decreases food neophobia score and encourages trying unfamiliar foods in 8–12-year-old children

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Abstract

The effects of sensory education on food-related traits and responses to food were examined over a period of 1.5 years in school children. Children (N = 164, 8- and 11-year-old at baseline) from two schools in Helsinki were divided in an education group (E; N = 92) receiving up to two waves of sensory lessons, and a control group (C; N = 72) participating in baseline and follow-up measurements only. The 1st wave (10 lessons) followed the principles of the French program “Classes du goût” and the 2nd wave (5 extensive lessons to 2/3 of the E group) concentrated on different food categories. A questionnaire assessing children’s liking and familiarity of unfamiliar and familiar foods and food neophobia, was sent to parents at the baseline and after each wave of sensory lessons. After education, the E group had tried a larger proportion of unfamiliar foods than at the baseline. The number of tasted foods in the C group remained at the baseline level. Food neophobia score decreased in the E group, while no change was seen in the C group. The effects of education were stronger in the younger children. Thus, sensory education has potential to activate children to try new foods and thereby to increase variety in their diets.

Introduction

Childhood eating habits play an important role in determining individual diets in the adulthood (Mikkilä, Räsänen, Raitakari, Pietinen, & Viikari, 2004), and children tend to base their food preferences and choices primarily on sensory qualities of food (Drewnowski, 2000, Nicklaus et al., 2004). Children may build up an image of how an acceptable food should look, and perhaps smell, and foods not sufficiently close to this image will be rejected (Dovey, Staples, Gibson, & Halford, 2008). An unfamiliar food is a target of food neophobia, reluctance to eat or the avoidance of new foods. Food neophobia appears in all age groups, and its strength varies between individuals (Pliner & Salvy, 2006). Using a multi-item verbal instrument for the measurement of food neophobia (Pliner & Hobden, 1992), it has been shown to be a heritable trait (Knaapila et al., 2007). Although a personality trait, food neophobia may also decrease during childhood or adolescence, thus being an age-dependent state (Rigal et al., 2006). Still, within ages the individual differences are fairly stable. It has been shown that exposures to a large variety of unfamiliar foods can reduce the neophobic reactions towards other novel, at least similar, foods (Birch, Gunder, Grimm-Thomas, & Laing, 1998). As children age, their experiences of different foods accumulate, helping them to become less neophobic because fewer foods are novel to them (Cooke & Wardle, 2005).

Although food neophobia has evolutionarily been useful, reducing the possibility of poisoning from unfamiliar and potentially harmful foods, it may have negative effects on dietary variety in the modern environment with safe food. Especially in children, food neophobia may adversely affect food choices by restricting intake of fruits and vegetables (Cooke, Wardle, & Gibson, 2003) and limiting overall dietary variety (Falciglia, Couch, Gribble, Pabst, & Frank, 2000). Food neophobia is not only related to willingness to try novel foods, but also to the expected liking for novel foods (Pliner and Hobden, 1992, Tuorila et al., 1994, Tuorila et al., 1998).

Behavioral food neophobia may be reduced by exposures to new foods (Pliner et al., 1993, Birch et al., 1998). However, Loewen and Pliner (1999) found that exposure to good-tasting novel foods is more efficient in reducing food neophobia, while exposure to bad-tasting novel foods may have no effect or even increases behavioral neophobia (Loewen & Pliner, 1999). Thus, creating positive experiences with novel tastes seems to generalize to willingness to taste other novel foods (Pliner & Salvy, 2006). Therefore, parents could help their children to become unprejudiced eaters by providing them a large variety of different foods. However, the current lifestyle in industrialized countries acts as a main barrier to providing regular and balanced meals at home. Parents are busy and the need for convenience drives them to feed their children with easy options like fast food or snacks (Gillman et al., 2000, Haapalahti et al., 2003). Such practices do not promote new food experiences among children and adolescents (Carruth et al., 1998, Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2003), and new means should be developed and tested. The French sensory education program, Classes du goût (Puisais & Pierre, 1987), was recently reported to temporarily reduce food neophobia in school children and encourage children to try new, unfamiliar foods (Reverdy, Chesnel, Schlich, Köster, & Lange, 2008). Overall, the ‘taste lessons’ aim to teach young children how to become well-informed consumers who are aware of the quality and differences between foods through their sensory impressions. Children’s awareness is increased through exercises that focus on their senses and appeal to their interest and curiosity. The program is intended to teach children about the pleasures of food. As a result of the education, children may become less neophobic. In Finland, we conducted a follow-up study examining the possible effects of the Finnish version of sensory education program on children’s food-related perceptions and traits. The program was adapted from earlier versions (Puisais and Pierre, 1987, Hagman and Algotson, 2000), and extended to include five further lessons to deepen children’s knowledge of main food categories (see Mustonen, Rantanen, and Tuorila (2009) for detailed description of the lessons).

In the following, we report the impact of sensory education, as reported by parents, on children’s food-related dispositions and behavior, such as food neophobia, willingness to taste unfamiliar foods, and pleasantness of foods in general. We predicted that sensory education would increase willingness to taste unfamiliar foods and enjoyment of food. The 2nd wave was expected to decrease neophobia further and increase enjoyment of the specific food categories (dairy, cereal and meat) involved in the education program.

Section snippets

Overview of the design

A questionnaire completed by parents and assessing children’s liking and familiarity of foods from different categories and food-related traits was used as the measuring instrument. One-half of the children (education group “E”) received up to two waves of taste lessons (1st, a Finnish application of Classes du goût program and 2nd, activating lessons on main food categories to 2/3 of the E group) and another half served as the control group “C”. The questionnaire was sent to all parents at the

Correlation between familiarity and pleasantness of the foods at the baseline

The less familiar a food was, the higher was the correlation between familiarity and pleasantness (Table 4). For fruits and berries, Pearson’s r varied from 0.55 (apple) to 0.74 (guava), and for vegetables and starches, from 0.19 (rice) to 0.86 (shiitake). For cereals, r ranged from 0.51 (rye bread) to 0.91 (couscous); for cheeses from 0.74 (processed cheese) to 0.84 (Mozzarella), for meat products from 0.42 (meat balls) to 0.88 (bratwurst), and for seafood, from 0.44 (fish sticks) to 0.79

Trying unfamiliar foods

The sensory education program aimed to encourage variety in eating, by exposing children to diverse foods during the lessons. This aim was accomplished, as in the end of the study, children in the education groups had tasted a larger number of unfamiliar foods than at the baseline, while no change was seen in the control group. The greatest increase was in the younger children of the group receiving two waves of sensory education. The sensory education provides children encouragement to taste

Conclusions

The sensory education encouraged children to taste foods they had not tasted before. The unprejudiced disposition to new food experiences was seen also in the decreasing food neophobia score. Eventually, the increased willingness to taste unfamiliar foods may lead to a healthier diet, as people eating a variety of foods often also eat healthier (Jonsson, Ekström, & Gustafsson, 2005). The improved skills and interest in food and eating can broaden the perspectives to foods and eating and provide

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the research program of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, by Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra) and by Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Finland. The authors thank Dr. Anna Bäckström for conducting the lessons in the 1st education wave, research technician Kaisu Taskila for her skillful help during the lessons, and Heli Esselström for contributions to early phases of implementation. The representatives of the Finnish companies Valio Ltd., Raisio Ltd., Fazer Bakeries and

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