Repetition counts: repeated exposure increases intake of a novel vegetable in UK pre-school children compared to flavour–flavour and flavour–nutrient learning

Abstract

Children are not consuming sufficient amounts of fruits and vegetables in their habitual diet. Methods derived from associative learning theories could be effective at promoting vegetable intake in pre-school children. The objective of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of different learning strategies in promoting the intake of a novel vegetable. Children aged between 9 and 38 months were recruited from UK nurseries. The children (n 72) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (repeated exposure, flavourflavour learning or flavour -nutrient learning). Each child was offered ten exposures to their respective version of a novel vegetable (artichoke). Pre-and post-intervention measures of artichoke purée and carrot purée (control vegetable) intake were taken. At pre-intervention, carrot intake was significantly higher than artichoke intake (P, 0·05). Intake of both vegetables increased over time (P,0·001); however, when changes in intake were investigated, artichoke intake increased significantly more than carrot intake (P,0·001). Artichoke intake increased to the same extent in all three conditions, and this effect was persistent up to 5 weeks post-intervention. Five exposures were sufficient to increase intake compared to the first exposure (P,0·001). Repeated exposure to three variants of a novel vegetable was sufficient to increase intake of this vegetable, regardless of the addition of a familiar taste or energy. Repetition is therefore a critical factor for promoting novel vegetable intake in pre-school children.

Sex Differences in the Effects of Repeated Taste Exposure to the Mediterranean Diet: A 6-month Follow-up Study

“…(26,33,(36)(37)(38)(39). However, interventions based mainly on exposure to the MedDiet have been ignored in the past, despite the fact that it has been found to be an effective strategy for modifying food preference and acceptance, and for increasing consumption of some particular MedDiet food groups (8)(9)(10)(11)(12). A large variability in the effectiveness of approaches aimed at increasing the adherence to the MedDiet has been observed in previous studies, and one factor that has been shown to influence the response to nutritional strategies is gender (i.e.…”

“…Repeated taste exposure, where people are asked to taste a food repeatedly over a period of time, has been found to be an effective strategy for modifying food preference and acceptance (8)(9)(10)(11), and thereby leads to a higher consumption of less familiar foods in the short-term (8,9,12). The success of this type of strategy has also been observed when exposure to healthy foods was used in combination with additional strategies, including education (13,14).…”

Lipides et comportement alimentaire chez les enfants

“…Ce travail révèle donc la capacité d'apprentissage du contrôle des quantités consommées en fonction de la densité énergé-tique. Ces résultats ont été reproduits chez des enfants jusqu'à trois ans (Caton et al, 2013 ;Hausner et al, 2012).…”

Understanding and changing children’s sensory acceptance for vegetables

“…The overall conclusion that emerges from this research is that repeated exposure is effective in increasing intake of vegetables in children, and that FFL and FNL offer no benefits beyond those found through the repeated exposure effect (52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59)(60)(61)(62) . Our study added to this knowledge by comparing two variants of a repeated exposure paradigm for its effectiveness to increase vegetable acceptance and intake.…”

“…Indeed, the child's dislike of a food is the main reason parents do not offer (58,59) , or stop offering a food to their child (60) , and mothers attribute their children's dislike of foods mainly to genetic factors (58) . This is unfortunate, as parents play an important role in shaping children's food preferences in a number of ways: they provide the food environment and thereby select the foods available for their child to eat, they are implicit role models for their child, and they socially interact with their child around eating behaviours, in particular in dealing with food refusals.…”