Objective Vegetable intake among children is well below recommended levels. We assessed whether food neophobia and pickiness contribute to low vegetable intake in school-aged girls and if there are distinct predictors for neophobia and pickiness. Children with food neophobia are reluctant to eat new foods whereas picky children resist eating many familiar foods. Design/subjects Participants were 192 7-year-old girls and their parents, recruited for a study of girls' nutrition and development. We examined relationships between food neophobia and pickiness and assessed whether these variables predicted girls' vegetable consumption and predictors of food neophobia and pickiness. Analyses The data were analyzed using a two-step process. First, we used a two-way analysis of variance to assess whether girls who scored high or low on food neophobia and pickiness measures had different levels of vegetable consumption. We used multiple regression analysis to determine predictors of food neophobia and pickiness in the girls. Results Girls with both food neophobia and pickiness consumed fewer vegetables (1.1±0.1) than girls with neither neophobia nor pickiness (1.6±0.1). Neophobia and pickiness were modestly related in this sample, but had different predictors. Girls with food neophobia were more anxious and had mothers with food neophobia. Picky girls had mothers with less variety in their vegetable intake (r=−0.22) and mothers who perceived their family to have little time to eat healthful foods (r=0.36). In addition, picky eaters were breastfed for fewer than 6 months (r=−0.25). Pickiness was predicted primarily by environmental or experiential factors subject to changes; neophobia was predicted by more enduring and dispositional factors. Applications Because food neophobia and pickiness negatively influence vegetable intake, intervention strategies to increase vegetable intake should focus on predictors of neophobia and pickiness, especially those subject to change. J Am Diet Assoc. 2003;103:692-698.
Section snippets
Participants
Newspaper advertisements, flyers, and letters of invitation were used to recruit prospective families in a 5-county radius of central Pennsylvania. Participating families were exclusively non-Hispanic white. We collected data from 192 young girls and their parents concerning early experience, nutrition, and a range of developmental issues when the girls were on average 7.3±0.3 years old. We obtained written parental consent from parents for themselves and their daughter and the study protocol
Statistical analysis
We used complete data from 191 families and analyzed the descriptive statistics for all variables of interest. Data from two families were dropped because the girls' data included outliers in two of the bivariate distributions. Data for three measurements-pickiness, no time to eat healthy, and breastfeeding-had skewed distributions that were unaffected by transformation. To address this problem, we dichotomized the skewed variables using a median split for all subsequent analyses, and
Descriptive measures of variables of interest
Table 1 provides descriptive information from our sample.Total vegetable consumption in girls was well below the 3 servings per day suggested by the USDA dietary guidelines (28), and below the 2.2 servings a day that Krebs-Smith et al (29) reported being consumed by this age group. As shown in Table 1, when we excluded potatoes in the form of french fries and potato chips, vegetable consumption dropped even further below these figures. Mothers' total vegetable consumption (including french
Discussion
These findings indicate that girls with neophobia and pickiness ate fewer servings of vegetables, compared with girls with neither food neophobia nor pickiness. Although they were modestly correlated, results from the regression analyses revealed that food neophobia and pickiness are distinct behavioral concepts with different predictors. Food neophobia in girls was predicted by traitlike variables: their mothers' own high food neophobia scores and their own comparatively high levels of
2024, International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science
This study aimed to investigate whether FN (food neophobia) persistence into adulthood could be associated with preference, acceptance, and perceived daily intake of FV (fruits and vegetables) among young Korean adults in their 20s, along with exploring the moderating role of the frequency of FV consumption during childhood. An online survey was conducted from February 19 to 24, 2020 with 1277 young Korean adults (men: 570, women: 707). Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to examine the associations between FN and FV preference and acceptance. Multinomial logistic regressions were conducted to explore the association of FN with perceived daily intake of FV. Generally, the study results showed that FN had a significant negative association with preference, acceptance, and perceived daily intake of FV among young Korean adults in their 20s. These negative associations seemed more pronounced with vegetables than with fruits. In addition, the results revealed that the frequency of FV consumption in childhood was likely to have a significant positive association with preference, acceptance, and perceived daily intake of FV later in young adulthood. Overall, the current study implies that more timely interventional efforts to improve FN are required to promote FV consumption in early adulthood and beyond. It may contribute to the development of dietary interventions or policy measures to promote FV consumption among young Korean adults and further serve as a reference for future studies on adult FN.
Cet article vise à évoquer la néophobie alimentaire chez les enfants jusqu’à la fin de l’âge scolaire, à l’exclusion des adolescents. Premièrement, nous définissons la néophobie alimentaire chez les enfants, ainsi que son recouvrement partiel avec le caractère difficile à nourrir ; puis nous analysons les associations entre la néophobie alimentaire et la qualité du régime alimentaire et le poids des enfants. La deuxième partie décrit les influences individuelles sur la néophobie alimentaire, notamment le développement de la néophobie alimentaire en fonction du développement affectif et cognitif, ainsi que du tempérament. La troisième partie aborde les influences psychosociales sur la néophobie alimentaire, en examinant l’influence des parents et des pairs, en se concentrant sur la façon dont elles peuvent modifier le développement typique de la néophobie. La quatrième partie évoque les implications pratiques de ces connaissances, pour les parents ou les éducateurs.
The aim of this article is to discuss food neophobia in children up to the end of school age, excluding adolescents. First, we define food neophobia in children, as well as its partial overlap with pickiness; then we analyze associations between food neophobia and children's diet quality and weight. The second part describes individual influences on food neophobia, including the development of food neophobia as a function of affective and cognitive development, as well as temperament. The third part discusses psychosocial influences on food neophobia, examining the influence of parents and peers, focusing on how they can modify the typical development of neophobia. The fourth section discusses the practical implications of this knowledge for parents and educators.
Picky eating is a common childhood phenomenon in younger children, impacting family relationships and mealtimes. Limited qualitative studies have explored parents’ experiences of parenting an extremely picky eater. This study aimed to address this gap.
This exploratory qualitative research design included participants who were Australian-based parents (n = 10) of children aged 2–6 years with a minimum picky eating score of 3.33, indicating extreme picky eating, on the Food Fussiness subscale of the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ). Parents were interviewed online via Zoom using semi-structured interviews focused on their experiences of having a child who is a picky eater. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.
Five themes were identified:
The picky eating journey for parents.
Picky eating impacts families and mealtimes.
Parents have attempted multiple strategies to manage picky eating.
Emotions associated with parenting an extremely picky eater.
Parents of extremely picky eaters have a positive outlook for the future.
This qualitative study demonstrates that parents' experiences of parenting an extremely picky eater are varied. Parents desire health professionals who listen to their concerns and provide evidence-based knowledge around parent feeding practices to positively impact picky eating.
The innate aversion to warning sensations is an important barrier to the acceptance of vegetable food often characterized by bitter and sour tastes, and astringency. Large individual variations exist in preference for this food category. The present study aimed at exploring differences in demographics, anthropometrics, taste responsiveness, personality traits and attitudes in consumers differing in their preference for vegetable food with varied levels of warning sensations. A panel of Italian consumers (n = 718; 53.6% women, age 18–74 years) self-reported familiarity with, preference for and choice of vegetables with high and low levels of warning sensations. Two clusters were identified: High Warning-Vegetable Consumers (HWVC, n = 464) and Low-Warning Vegetable Consumers (LWVC, n = 254). HWVC showed higher familiarity with and preference for vegetables as a whole and higher choice of vegetables characterized by warning sensations than LWVC. HWVC were more represented by older and normal weight individuals as compared to LWVC. Differences among clusters in liking for and perception of a phenol-enriched plant-based food model specifically developed to induce different levels of bitterness, sourness and astringency were found. HWVC rated bitterness, sourness, and astringency lower and liking higher than LWVC. Scores in anxiety-related psychological traits were lower while attitudes to healthy and high-quality food choice were higher in HWVC than in LWVC. The results of the present study depicted a coherent interplay among several person-related dimensions in modulating preference for vegetable foods. Higher responsiveness to warning sensations, higher level of anxiety-related traits, lower importance assigned to food healthy/quality aspects and younger age all acted as barriers to exposure and acceptance of vegetable food and call for a multidimensional approach to promote the consumption of this food category.
Measuring emotional responses to tastes and foods, using both self-reports and also implicit and physiological measurements is gaining attention. Among physiological measurements, skin conductance response (SCR) is one the most commonly used indicators of emotional activation but it has been rarely applied to taste and other oral stimuli and its interpretation is not yet clear. Furthermore, the effect of individual differences in SCR to tastes has been rarely taken into account. To address these issues, SCR to bitter, astringent, and sweet samples presented both at weak/moderate and moderate/strong intensity was recorded while eighty Italians, selected based on PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil) status (only Medium-Tasters), performed an implicit affective test. Samples were presented blind in aqueous solutions monadically in triplicate. Subjects (Ss) were asked to taste a sample, then a neutral face was briefly presented on a screen, and Ss were asked to indicate if they trusted the face (yes/no) and how much (on a 9-point Scale). Data on Ss’ psychological traits (anxiety, sensation seeking, food neophobia, emotional stability) was also collected. Two clusters were identified based individual SCR. These clusters differed in their SCR mainly to strong bitterness, and partially to astringency, while they did not differ for their response to the sweet samples. The High bitter responders were more anxious and neurotic than Low bitter responders. For this cluster higher intensities induced higher SCR, but this was not found in the Low bitter responders cluster that tended to have higher SCR to the least intense samples. No differences in the implicit affective responses to samples were found between clusters. These results indicate that SCR to tastes reflect mainly different sources of arousal, such as novelty/surprisingness, quality and intensity of the stimuli, and this may change at an individual level. This suggests that measurement of SC can contribute to a better understanding of individual differences in taste and oral experience and could provide a link between taste responsiveness and sympathetic nervous system activity.
Humans differ strongly in their willingness to try novel foods. Hesitance to try new foods is referred to as food neophobia. Understanding food neophobia is important, as it can be a significant barrier to adopt a healthy, balanced or plant-based diet. We here use electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings to obtain insight in the early attentional processes towards food stimuli as a function of food neophobia. 43 Dutch participants completed the food neophobia scale after which they were presented with pictures of familiar and unfamiliar foods and a 15-minute movie about the origin and production of an unfamiliar food. We extracted two EEG-based metrics of attention: the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude in response to the food pictures, and inter-subject correlations (ISC-EEG) during the movie. The latter is a novel metric, based on similarities in EEG over time between individuals who are presented with the same stimulus, and suitable for examining attention towards continuous stimuli such as movies. Additionally, participants were asked to taste familiar and unfamiliar soups, and they were asked to rate the pictures and soups for valence and arousal. ISC-EEG and the LPP amplitude increased and sip size decreased with food neophobia, not only for unfamiliar food pictures, but also for familiar food pictures. Self-reported emotional experience was affected by food neophobia for unfamiliar food pictures or soups, but not for familiar ones. We conclude that food neophobia is associated with increased attentional processing and immediate implicit behavior, for all food stimuli and not only for unfamiliar food stimuli. This indicates that all food-related stimuli are of high importance to food neophobic individuals and that self-reported emotion does not capture the entire experience of food. The results also indicates that, unlike the name suggest, food neophobia does not only affect processing of novel foods, but of any food regardless of familiarity.
