While there are many factors that influence a child's food choices, researchers from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) found that taste is the most influential of them all.
There are many factors that influence a child's food choices. The key ones include taste, repeat exposure, serving size and parental behavior. During a July 15 panel discussion at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo held at McCormick Place, attendees were presented with information about how children choose their food, their eating behavior and how parents and the food industry can help children make healthy food choices.
"Children's decision making has few dimensions," explained Dr. Adam Drewnowski (CQ), director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition and professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle in a press release. Not surprisingly, children lean toward sweets like cookies, chocolate, fruits and juices as well as salty foods that make them feel full like French fries and pizza. But environment, peer groups, family and exposure to a variety of menu items play a key role in children's food choices.
Researchers clarified that children's choice of food is not as complicated as adults. All children base their choices on preference rather than health benefits. Dr. Jennifer Orlet Fisher, an associate professor of public health at Temple University, Philadelphia, found in her study that while children prefer fatty and sugar-rich food, fruits top their list of food preferences, followed by starches, meat and eggs, dairy and vegetables. She admitted that children don't essentially like healthy food but need to be taught to eat them.
Repeat exposure drives food choices in children, researchers found. This explains why many children repeatedly choose chicken nuggets and cheese over other food items. Repeat exposure also leads to food neophobia, better known as picky eating. Children most often develop this between the ages of two and six. Children develop taste preferences shortly after birth, which is why they prefer sweet and salty flavors to bitter and sour ones.
Parental behavior also drives children to make healthy food choices.
"When children are watching adults, they more quickly try new foods and accept new foods particularly when the adult is enthusiastic," Fisher said. "What doesn't work is pressuring kids to eat. And if you bribe kids with dessert, they will end up disliking the vegetables even more."
A recent study shows that offering children flavored, reduced-fat dips can increase their vegetable consumption habits.
