The Development and Public Health Implications of Food Preferences in Children

Abstract

Food preferences are a primary determinant of dietary intake and behaviors, and they persist from early childhood into later life. As such, establishing preferences for healthy foods from a young age is a promising approach to improving diet quality, a leading contributor to cardiometabolic health. This narrative review first describes the critical period for food preference development starting in utero and continuing through early childhood. Infants’ innate aversion to sour and bitter tastes can lead them to initially reject some healthy foods such as vegetables. Infants can learn to like these foods through exposures to their flavors in utero and through breastmilk. As solid foods are introduced through toddlerhood, children’s food preferences are shaped by parent feeding practices and environmental factors such as food advertising. Next, we discuss two key focus areas to improve diet quality highlighted by the current understanding of food preferences: (1) promoting healthy food preferences through breastfeeding and early exposures to healthy foods and (2) limiting the extent to which innate preferences for sweet and salty tastes lead to poor diet quality. We use an ecological framework to summarize potential points of intervention and provide recommendations for these focus areas, such as worksite benefits that promote breastfeeding, and changes in food retail and service environments. Individuals’ choices around breastfeeding and diet may ultimately be influenced by policy and community-level factors. It is thus crucial to take a multilevel approach to establish healthy food preferences from a young age, which have the potential to translate into lifelong healthy diet.

Genetic Background of Taste Perception, Taste Preferences, and Its Nutritional Implications: A Systematic Review

“…Two major areas should be recognized for nutrition policies and programs focusing on early and environmental exposures. Early exposures include experiences in utero and during the lactation and complementary feeding period of infants (reviewed in Beckerman et al, 2017). Research shows that maternal unhealthy food intake during pregnancy and/or lactation increases the preference for highfat and/or high-sugar diets of the offspring (Muhlhausler et al, 2017).…”

“…Research shows that maternal unhealthy food intake during pregnancy and/or lactation increases the preference for highfat and/or high-sugar diets of the offspring (Muhlhausler et al, 2017). The timing and repeated intake of bitter tasting fruits and vegetables should be the primary focus of the complementary feeding period (reviewed in Beckerman et al, 2017), since sweet and bitter-taste preference can be influenced by early childhood experiences (Bartoshuk and Beauchamp, 1994;Mela, 2001). This is essential since sweet preference is the highest during childhood and it declines with age (reviewed in Hoffman et al, 2016) and the correlation between preferences of preschool children and their consumption patterns is considerably higher than the relationship reported by adults (Birch, 1979).…”

“…Environmental exposures involve the social environment, such as parents (feeding practices and social and emotional context of food), peers, community (daycare, preschool, school, etc. ), media, and other environmental effects (food access and advertisements) (reviewed in Beckerman et al, 2017). Therefore, it is important to strengthen the implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (World Health Organization, 2018) and introduce restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods to children, covering all media, including digital, and to close any regulatory loopholes, as current evidence indicates that child-directed advertising has a major impact on children's diets (Tatlow-Golden et al, 2016;World Health Organization, 2016;Emond et al, 2019).…”

A systematic review of strategies to increase drinking‐water access and consumption among 0‐ to 5‐year‐olds

“…(3) did not include original data (eg, if more than one article was published from the same cohort, only the study with the largest sample size was included, unless a different outcome variable was used); (4) published before January 1, 2000; (5) no intervention was implemented to increase water access or intake; (6) conducted in a school setting that only had students in kindergarten and higher grades; and (7) outcome did not include water access or consumption.…”

Consistency of Food Preferences in Australian Children from 2 to 5 Years of Age

“…However, parents can potentially modify these initial flavour preferences by exposing children to a wide variety of healthy foods in early life [5][6]. Exposure to foods starts via flavour transfer in utero and while breastfeeding, and continues during introduction to solid foods [7]. It is recommended that parents introduce a wide variety of flavours and textures from around six months of age, as children younger than 24 months of age may be more receptive to new foods than older children [8][9].…”