Infant and toddler dietary variety: The role of parental food neophobia and infant temperament

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Health, Growth, Injury

Abstract

During infancy and toddlerhood, eating a variety of foods is essential to achieve adequate intake of key nutrients. In the United States Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS), over 20% of toddlers did not consume any fruits or vegetables in a 24-hour period and vegetable consumption was particularly poor (Roess et al, 2018). Prior studies in preschool and school-aged children showed that higher levels of food neophobia in mothers were associated with offering a smaller variety of foods to their children (Kovisto & Sjoden, 1996; Cook et al., 2003), but this has not been fully explored in infants and toddlers. Temperamental wariness in response to novelty has been associated with infants’ rejection of new foods (Moding & Stifter, 2018), but it has not been examined in relation to dietary variety offered by parents. This study’s goal was to investigate the associations of parental food neophobia and infant temperamental negative affectivity with the variety of fruits, vegetables, and total variety of foods parents offered their infants.

Infants (n=56) and their mothers (71% Non-Hispanic White) completed a laboratory visit when the infants were between 6-24 months of age. Parents completed questionnaires to assess their own food neophobia (Food Neophobia Scale; Pliner & Hobden, 1992), the variety of foods they had offered to their child prior to the visit (questionnaire designed for this study), and their child’s temperament (Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised [IBQ-R]; Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Separate variables were created for total number foods, vegetables, and fruits infants had been offered. The negative affectivity superfactor of the IBQ-R was created by averaging responses to 4 subscales: fear, sadness, distress to limitations, and (inverse) falling reactivity. Separate multiple regression models were used to examine associations of parental food neophobia and infant negativity with a) total vegetables, b) total fruits, and c) total variety of foods offered. Each model controlled for child age (in weeks). Child sex, parental income, and parental education were not associated with the outcome variables and were not considered further.

The regression models predicting total number of foods (R²=.60, F=25.6, p<.001), total vegetables (R²=.45, F=13.9, p<.001), and total fruits (R²=.49, F=16.4, p<.001) were significant. As expected, child age was significantly associated with total number of foods (β=1.1, t=8.6, p<0.001), vegetables (β=.18, t=5.6. p<.001), and fruits (β=.16, t=6.9, p<.001) offered. Parental food neophobia (β= -.25, t= -.25, p<.05) and infant negativity (β=-.22, t=-2.1, p<.05) were significantly associated with the number of vegetables offered, but not the total foods or fruits offered. The interaction between parental food neophobia and child negativity was not significant in any of the models.

The results of this study suggest that parental food neophobia and infant temperamental negativity may be two barriers to offering a variety of vegetables, but not fruits or a total variety of foods, to infants and toddlers. Providing parents of young children both insight into strategies to address their own food neophobia and their child’s temperament may increase the variety of vegetables offered during this critical period.

Authors

• Elizabeth Irene Kielb, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Presenting Author

• Kameron Moding, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eric Hodges, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan L. Johnson, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
  Non-Presenting Author