Towards a Holistic Developmental Investigation of Children’s Eating Behaviors

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Dietary habits and eating behaviors in early childhood have both short and long-term impacts on mental and physical health and development, therefore understanding the development of children’s eating behavior is extremely important. Determining the contributing factors of food avoidance (narrow range of food acceptance and/or undereating) and food approach (high food responsiveness and/or overeating) is key to predicting negative health outcomes. Furthermore, documenting the psychological underpinnings of food acceptance or rejection is a precondition for designing efficient interventions that aim to foster dietary variety and healthier food choices in children.
This symposium adopts a multidisciplinary approach to outline and investigate the factors contributing to the development of children’s eating behaviors. The first paper provides an operative diagnosis of both food-avoidant children (picky/fussy eaters) and children with high food approach (appetite avidity) using latent-based profiling. The second paper addresses maternal modeling when introducing solid foods to children at 6, 9, and 12 months old. The third paper investigates how differences in executive functioning are related to children’s dispositions to reject novel food. The final paper discusses how children interpret food transformations and discusses how this influences food rejection.
The findings of these talks demonstrate the importance of adopting a holistic approach when investigating the factors responsible for the development of eating habits and food selection in early childhood. Through an examination of the behavioral, cognitive, social, and cultural predictors of food choice this paper symposium provides key collaborative and integrative proposals for supporting healthy dietary behaviors.

Sub Unit

• Health, Growth, Injury

Chair

• Jasmine M. DeJesus, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Individual Presentations

• Latent Profiles of Children’s Eating Behaviour: Identifying Avid Eaters - Presenting Author: Abigail Pickard, Aston University; Helen Croker, World Cancer Research Fund; Claire Farrow, Aston University; Emma Haycraft, Loughborough University; Moritz Herle, King's College London; Alice Kininmonth, University College London; Clare Llewellyn, University College London; Jacqueline Blissett, Aston University

• Limited social modeling of familiar and unfamiliar foods in infant feedings at 6/9/12 months - Presenting Author: Jasmine M. DeJesus, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Shruthi Venkatesh, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Alison Leslie Miller, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Ashley Gearhardt; Katherine L Rosenblum, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Danielle Appugliese; Niko Kaciroti; Julie Lumeng, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Cognitive Flexibility Predicts Children’s Levels of Food Neophobia - Presenting Author: Damien Foinant, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté; Jérémie Lafraire, Institut Paul Bocuse; Jean-Pierre Thibaut, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comte

• The effects of transformations on category membership boundaries for natural and processed foods - Presenting Author: Helana Girgis, Stockton University; Simone Nguyen, University of North Carolina at Wilmington; Jérémie Lafraire, Institut Paul Bocuse; Jean-Pierre Thibaut, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comte; Camille Rioux