Individual differences in children’s willingness to try new foods: The role of temperament

• In Event: Expanding research on child food acceptance to include individual differences, innovative interventions, and under-represented populations

Abstract

Introduction:
The gold standard method for improving children’s acceptance of new foods is repeated exposure (RE), or offering repeated small tastes of a target food over time. Evidence suggests that this strategy is highly effective when children are willing to taste the target food. Yet children who refuse to taste the foods are commonly excluded from RE interventions. Consequently, learnings from the well-established food preferences literature may not generalize to children with low willingness to taste new foods. To begin to address this gap, more research is needed to characterize these children, who may be at risk for poor dietary and health outcomes. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of low willingness to taste new foods and the child and parent factors associated with this characteristic in a sample of 4.5-year-old children.

Methods:
Children (n = 111, 52% male, 91% non-Hispanic White) participated in two laboratory visits when they were 4.5 years of age. Each visit included assessments of child temperament. The second visit included a “Tasting Game” where an experimenter presented three novel foods (lychee, nori, haw jelly) to the child. Children decided whether they wanted to taste each food. Following each visit, trained experimenters rated the child’s temperament using the Observed Child Temperament Scale (OCTS; Stifter et al., 2008). Parents reported on their child’s temperament using the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart et al., 2001). Of interest in the present analysis were the aspects of temperament assessed by both experimenters and parents: surgency, negative affectivity, fear, shyness, and wariness of new people. Additional CBQ dimensions were also explored: approach, discomfort, and perceptual sensitivity. Finally, mothers rated their feeding practices using the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ; Musher-Eizenman & Holub, 2007).

Results:
34% of children (n = 38) in this sample did not taste any of the new foods. These children were rated by experimenters as being more wary of new people (M = 2.99, SD = .81) compared to their peers (n = 73; M = 2.60, SD = .78; t = 2.47, p = .02). Children who did not taste the new foods were also rated by their mothers as being more fearful (M = 4.15, SD = 1.07) than their peers (M = 3.68, SD = 1.07; t = 2.21, p = .03). These associations were not significantly moderated by parent feeding practices. There were no significant associations between willingness to taste and other temperament dimensions.

Discussion:
The results of this study demonstrate that excluding children with low willingness to taste new foods from RE interventions may be problematic for two reasons. First, the children who refused to try new foods comprised over one-third of this study sample. Second, these children were rated by experimenters and mothers has having temperamentally fearful qualities, suggesting that existing RE studies may not be broadly representative of children with varying levels of fear. Future intervention research should include efforts to reach these children, such as by modifying traditional intervention paradigms and including assessments of temperament and willingness to taste.

Authors

• Kameron Moding, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie Anzman-Frasca, State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo)
  Non-Presenting Author