Self Selection of Diet by Newly Weaned Infants

Abstract

This experiment may be described briefly as that of (1) allowing newly weaned infants to choose their own foods in such quantities as they may desire from a fairly wide range of commonly used natural food materials, unmixed, unseasoned and unaltered except, in the case of some, by cooking in the simplest manner, and (2) assembling data on the food consumed and the condition of the infants.

Both increases and decreases in energy density lead to sustained changes in preschool children's energy intake over 5 days

“…These findings demonstrate the robust and sustained effects that dietary ED can have on preschool children's energy intake, and challenge the assumption that energy deficits elicit a stronger regulatory response than energy surfeits. Despite mixed findings in previous studies related to children's regulation of energy intake, it is generally assumed that young children will adjust intake in response to energy perturbations [1,2,[11][12][13]]; yet we did not find compensatory changes for the differences in energy intake resulting from ED variations across time. The effect of ED on children's ad libitum energy intake over 5 days was similar to that found in previous short-term studies [6][7][8].…”

The Effect of Availability, Point of Purchase Advertising, and Sampling on Children's First Independent Food Purchases

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Some Effects of Thiamine Deficiency on Food Selection in the Rat

“…In a personal communication Y udkin remarked that the food preferences of the individual rats not only varied one from another, but that the same rat would often eat sucrose for several days and then avoid it for a similar period. This behaviour also bears a similarity to the 'food jags' reported by Davis [13] in connection with the self selection of diets by infants. The infants studied had definite but unpredictable preferences, eating large quantities of a particular food for a number of days.…”