Food plating preferences of children: the importance of presentation on desire for diversity

Abstract

The assumption that children prefer food presentations that match adult preferences appears to be unjustified. Future research and interventions that are designed to improve childhood nutrition should test for the impact of diverse presentations on actual food consumption among a variety of populations across institutional settings.

Variety in snack servings as determinant for acceptance in school children

“…It is likely that varying sensory properties such as taste, texture, size, shape, and color will influence perceived variety since such attributes have previously been demonstrated to affect SSS (Rolls, Rowe, & Rolls, 1982). In vegetables, shape is known to affect liking in children aged 9e12 years, who prefer to have their vegetables cut and presented in more complex serving styles (Olsen, Ritz, Kramer, & Møller, 2012;Zampollo, Kniffin, Wansink, & Shimizu, 2012). also demonstrated that size did not matter when vegetables were cut, but when served as a whole or as chunks the ordinary size was preferred over the smaller size.…”

Using plate mapping to examine sensitivity to plate size in food portions and meal composition among college students

“…A self-served portions experiment revealed that only 45% of portions at breakfast and 32% of portions at lunch or dinner were either 25% bigger or 25% smaller that the recommended portion size, with a majority of those portions being bigger (Schwartz & Byrd-Bredbenner, 2006). People who serve themselves bigger portions or who are served bigger portions tend to consume more (Diliberti, Bordi, Conklin, Roe, & Rolls, 2004; Levitsky & Youn, 2004; Raynor & Wing, 2007; Rolls, Morris, & Roe, 2002; Rolls, Roe, Kral, Meengs, & Wall, 2004) and food choice is important when determining the preferences (Zampollo, Kniffin, Wansink, & Shimizu, 2012) and number of foods available at a meal (Levitsky, Iyer, & Pacanowski, 2012). …”

Early Origins of Overeating: Early Habit Formation and Implications for Obesity in Later Life

“…This is particularly expressed in children, who pay more attention to various visual inputs as drivers of liking than adults dosuch as appearance, color and amount [57]. Such factors can influence our perception of foods [56], as well as amounts of consumption [58], but few studies have addressed children's specific preferences: In comparison to adults, children preferred more diverse arrangements of food on their plates, and they liked having a variety of foods and colors displayed [59]. Children also expressed distinct preferences for certain shapes (stars) of snack vegetables [60], and smaller sized snacks were more liked than their larger counterparts -also over repeated exposures [61].…”