41
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      How Infants and Young Children Learn About Food: A Systematic Review

      review-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Early childhood is a critical time for establishing food preferences and dietary habits. In order for appropriate advice to be available to parents and healthcare professionals it is essential for researchers to understand the ways in which children learn about foods. This review summarizes the literature relating to the role played by known developmental learning processes in the establishment of early eating behavior, food preferences and general knowledge about food, and identifies gaps in our knowledge that remain to be explored. A systematic literature search identified 48 papers exploring how young children learn about food from the start of complementary feeding to 36 months of age. The majority of the papers focus on evaluative components of children's learning about food, such as their food preferences, liking and acceptance. A smaller number of papers focus on other aspects of what and how children learn about food, such as a food's origins or appropriate eating contexts. The review identified papers relating to four developmental learning processes: (1) Familiarization to a food through repeated exposure to its taste, texture or appearance. This was found to be an effective technique for learning about foods, especially for children at the younger end of our age range. (2) Observational learning of food choice. Imitation of others' eating behavior was also found to play an important role in the first years of life. (3) Associative learning through flavor-nutrient and flavor-flavor learning (FFL). Although the subject of much investigation, conditioning techniques were not found to play a major role in shaping the food preferences of infants in the post-weaning and toddler periods. (4) Categorization of foods. The direct effects of the ability to categorize foods have been little studied in this age group. However, the literature suggests that what infants are willing to consume depends on their ability to recognize items on their plate as familiar exemplars of that food type.

          Related collections

          Most cited references83

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Core knowledge.

          Human cognition is founded, in part, on four systems for representing objects, actions, number, and space. It may be based, as well, on a fifth system for representing social partners. Each system has deep roots in human phylogeny and ontogeny, and it guides and shapes the mental lives of adults. Converging research on human infants, non-human primates, children and adults in diverse cultures can aid both understanding of these systems and attempts to overcome their limits.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Influence of mother's educational level on food parenting practices and food habits of young children.

            The main purpose of the present study is to examine whether differences in mothers' food parenting practices by educational level could explain differences in food consumption in Flemish preschool children. Three hundred and sixteen mothers of children aged 2.5-7 years, completed a self-administered questionnaire. Differences by educational level were found in children's and mothers' consumption frequencies of fruit, vegetables and soft drinks, and in the use of restrictions, verbal praise, negotiation, discouragement of sweets and restraining from negative modelling behaviour. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that mothers' consumption was an independent predictor for all four outcome variables; verbal praise was a significant predictor for children's vegetable consumption, permissiveness for regular consumption of soft drinks and sweets, and, using food as a reward for regular sweet consumption. Differences in children's food consumption by mothers' educational level were completely explained by mother's consumption and other food parenting practices for fruit and vegetables but not for soft drinks.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Children's food preferences: a longitudinal analysis.

              To compare children's food preferences longitudinally and identify factors related to food preferences. Mothers completed the Food Preference Questionnaire for children at 2 to 3 years of age (T1), 4 years (T2), and 8 years (T3) and for themselves at T1 and T3. Both groups completed a Food Neophobia Scale at T3. 70 child/mother pairs who had participated continuously in the longitudinal study. Changes in food preferences over time were tested with paired t tests and correlations. Consistency percentages were calculated by summing the consistent matches (like/like) for each food between two time periods. Similarly, concordance percentages were calculated for child/mother pairs by summing the concordant matches for each food. General linear models were developed to identify influences on children's food preferences. Although children liked most foods, the number of liked foods did not change significantly during the 5 to 5.7 years of the study. The strongest predictors of the number of foods liked at age 8 years (R2=0.74) were the number liked at 4 years (P<.0001) and the food neophobia score (P=.0003). Newly tasted foods were more likely to be accepted between T1 and T2 than T2 and T3. Mothers' and children's food preferences were significantly but moderately related. Foods disliked by mothers tended not to be offered to children. The important role of children's early food preferences is confirmed by this study. Mothers influence children via their own preferences, which may limit foods offered to children.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Psychol
                Front Psychol
                Front. Psychol.
                Frontiers in Psychology
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-1078
                25 July 2017
                2017
                : 8
                : 1046
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Danone Nutricia Research Utrecht, Netherlands
                [2] 2School of Health and Related Research, Section of Public Health, University of Sheffield Sheffield, United Kingdom
                [3] 3School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading Malaysia Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia
                Author notes

                Edited by: Caroline Braet, Ghent University, Belgium

                Reviewed by: Stephanie Anzman-Frasca, University at Buffalo, United States; Laura Nynke Van Der Laan, Utrecht University, Netherlands

                *Correspondence: Carolus M. J. L. Vereijken carel.vereijken@ 123456danone.com

                This article was submitted to Eating Behavior, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

                Article
                10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01046
                5524770
                28790935
                fd145a30-1673-419f-a875-1b77f5517857
                Copyright © 2017 Mura Paroche, Caton, Vereijken, Weenen and Houston-Price.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 16 February 2017
                : 08 June 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 1, Tables: 6, Equations: 0, References: 105, Pages: 33, Words: 23095
                Categories
                Psychology
                Review

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                infant,toddler,food preference,learning,eating habits,development
                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                infant, toddler, food preference, learning, eating habits, development

                Comments

                Comment on this article