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      Common genetic architecture underlying young children’s food fussiness and liking for vegetables and fruit 1 2 3

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          Abstract

          Background: Food fussiness (FF) is common in early childhood and is often associated with the rejection of nutrient-dense foods such as vegetables and fruit. FF and liking for vegetables and fruit are likely all heritable phenotypes; the genetic influence underlying FF may explain the observed genetic influence on liking for vegetables and fruit. Twin analyses make it possible to get a broad-based estimate of the extent of the shared genetic influence that underlies these traits.

          Objective: We quantified the extent of the shared genetic influence that underlies FF and liking for vegetables and fruit in early childhood with the use of a twin design.

          Design: Data were from the Gemini cohort, which is a population-based sample of twins born in England and Wales in 2007. Parents of 3-y-old twins ( n = 1330 pairs) completed questionnaire measures of their children’s food preferences (liking for vegetables and fruit) and the FF scale from the Children’s Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Multivariate quantitative genetic modeling was used to estimate common genetic influences that underlie FF and liking for vegetables and fruit.

          Results: Genetic correlations were significant and moderate to large in size between FF and liking for both vegetables (−0.65) and fruit (−0.43), which indicated that a substantial proportion of the genes that influence FF also influence liking. Common genes that underlie FF and liking for vegetables and fruit largely explained the observed phenotypic correlations between them (68–70%).

          Conclusions: FF and liking for fruit and vegetables in young children share a large proportion of common genetic factors. The genetic influence on FF may determine why fussy children typically reject fruit and vegetables.

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          Most cited references18

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          Development of the Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire.

          Individual differences in several aspects of eating style have been implicated in the development of weight problems in children and adults, but there are presently no reliable and valid scales that assess a range of dimensions of eating style. This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of a parent-rated instrument to assess eight dimensions of eating style in children; the Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ). Constructs for inclusion were derived both from the existing literature on eating behaviour in children and adults, and from interviews with parents. They included responsiveness to food, enjoyment of food, satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating. fussiness, emotional overeating, emotional undereating. and desire for drinks. A large pool of items covering each of these constructs was developed. The number of items was then successively culled through analysis of responses from three samples of families of young children (N = 131; N = 187; N = 218), to produce a 35-item instrument with eight scales which were internally valid and had good test-retest reliability. Investigation of variations by gender and age revealed only minimal gender differences in any aspect of eating style. Satiety responsiveness and slowness in eating diminished from age 3 to 8. Enjoyment of food and food responsiveness increased over this age range. The CEBQ should provide a useful measure of eating style for research into the early precursors of obesity or eating disorders. This is especially important in relation to the growing evidence for the heritability of obesity, where good measurement of the associated behavioural phenotype will be crucial in investigating the contribution of inherited variations in eating behaviour to the process of weight gain.
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            Infant zygosity can be assigned by parental report questionnaire data.

            A parental report questionnaire posted to a population sample of 18-month-old twins correctly assigned zygosity in 95%of cases when validated against zygosity determined by identity of polymorphic DNA markers. The questionnaire was as accurate when readministered at 3 years of age, with 96% of children being assigned the same zygosity on both occasions. The results validate the use of parental report questionnaire data to determine zygosity in infancy.
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              Adjustment of twin data for the effects of age and sex.

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Am J Clin Nutr
                Am. J. Clin. Nutr
                ajcn
                The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
                American Society for Nutrition
                0002-9165
                1938-3207
                April 2016
                10 February 2016
                10 February 2016
                : 103
                : 4
                : 1099-1104
                Affiliations
                [4 ]Health Behavior Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom; and
                [5 ]Department for Health Evidence and
                [6 ]Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands
                Author notes
                [* ]To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.fildes@ 123456ucl.ac.uk .
                [1]

                Supported by Cancer Research UK [grant C1418/A7974; for the Gemini study (to JW)]. This is an open access article distributed under the CC-BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

                [2]

                The funding body had no role in the data collection, analysis, or decision to publish the results.

                [3]

                Supplemental Figure 1 is available from the “Online Supporting Material” link in the online posting of the article and from the same link in the online table of contents at http://ajcn.nutrition.org.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5452-2512
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4269-0041
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5938-7110
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0066-2827
                Article
                122945
                10.3945/ajcn.115.122945
                4807704
                26864359
                0422e9ff-99ca-4eb0-9eca-6838cdbeeba5

                This is an open access article distributed under the CC-BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

                History
                : 4 September 2015
                : 30 December 2015
                Page count
                Pages: 6
                Categories
                Nutritional Epidemiology and Public Health

                Nutrition & Dietetics
                child,eating,food,fussiness,genetic,heritability,infant,liking,preferences
                Nutrition & Dietetics
                child, eating, food, fussiness, genetic, heritability, infant, liking, preferences

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