Infant Acceptance of Primary Tastes and Fat Emulsion: Developmental Changes and Links with Maternal and Infant Characteristics

Abstract

Previous studies on taste acceptance have been conducted taste-by-taste and with a cross-sectional design. The aim of this study was to longitudinally evaluate the acceptance of sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami solutions, and a fat emulsion comparatively in a birth cohort from 3 to 20 months old. The acceptance of each taste relative to water was defined using proportional variables that are based on ingestion (IR) or liking evaluated by the experimenter (LR). These data were analyzed with mixed models that accounted for age and subject effects (minimum 152 observations/age/taste; maximum 216). For saltiness, acceptance increased sharply between 3 and 12 months old. The trajectories of acceptance were parallel for sweetness, sourness, and the umami tastes between 3 and 20 months old, with sweetness being preferred. Between 12 and 20 months old, the acceptance of all tastes, except bitterness, decreased, and at 20 months old, only sweetness was not rejected. The acceptance of bitterness remained stable. For the fat emulsion, acceptance evolved from indifference to rejection. The acceptance of saltiness and umami tastes were lower in girls than boys at 20 months old. The acceptance of the fat emulsion was higher in infants who were born heavier and taller. At 20 months old, the fat emulsion acceptance was higher in infants who were born from mothers with a higher prepregnancy body mass index. Finally, the taste differential reactivity (the standard deviation of the IRs) significantly increased from 3 to 20 months old.

The Role of Dietary Experience in the Development of Eating Behavior during the First Years of Life

“…An examination of the exposure to sweet taste in OPALINE infants showed that it increases from 3-6 until 10-12 months [32] . This increase in sweet food consumption may only be driven by maternal cooking habits or attitudes, or this may be reinforced (consciously or not) by the caregiver's observation of infant satisfaction while eating sweet foods [10,31] . Further studies should help disentangle these aspects, because of strong concerns related to sugar consumption, even at an early age [33] .…”

“…The taste and olfactory systems are functional at birth, but taste preference continue to evolve over the course of the first year, with the notable increase in salty taste preference between 3 and 6 months [10] , probably as a result of dietary experience [11] . Olfactory preferences are not marked at birth [12] but may be influenced by prenatal exposure to food flavors in the amniotic fluid [13] , coming from the maternal diet, although the extent of this phenomenon is currently debated [14] .…”

Eating and Drinking in Childhood

“…Concerning taste perceptions, newborns are able to display a variety of facial expressions and behavioral responses when they are exposed to the different primary tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami) (Lipchock et al 2011). Later in development during infancy, infants still show contrasted preferences across the primary tastes, but preference for all tastes do not evolve in the same way: for instance, the preference for salty taste increases sharply during the first year (Schwartz et al 2017). Regarding manipulation of food textures, infants are born with very limited oral skills that only enable sucking during the first months (Nicklaus et al 2015).…”

“…After the initiation of complementary feeding (introduction of foods other than milk to the child's diet), children can process foods which have a soft texture (like infant cereals or purees foods) but are still limited in their ability to process hard/chewy foods (Demonteil et al 2019), but in terms of flavors, they tend to accept a wide variety of foods (Lange et al 2013). Notably, the liking of a food (judged from parental reports) can differ as a function of food taste, and infants may like more foods that have a saltier taste (Schwartz et al 2011), in relation with the development of salt taste preference (Schwartz et al 2017). This is not a good news because the consumption of sodium is advised against at this stage of life, in relation to kidney immature functioning.…”

The magic water test. An affective paired comparison approach to evaluate taste sensitivity in pre-schoolers

“…Additionally, sour preference has been associated with higher consumption of fruit in children (Blossfeld et al, 2007;Liem, Bogers, Dagnelie, & de Graaf, 2006). Childhood is a stage with a particular emphasis on sweetness (Mennella, Pepino, & Reed, 2005;Schneider, Jerusalem, Mente, & De Bock, 2013;Schwartz et al, 2017;Yuan et al, 2016), and this dissertation had a particular focus on sweet preferences, but also investigated preferences for sourness and bitterness. This dissertation begins the next chapter with describing taste preferences more thoroughly.…”