Taste sensitivity, food preferences, and physical activity pattern associated with nutritional status of adolescents

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of taste sensitivity, food preferences, and pattern of physical activity on the nutritional status of public school adolescents. A cross‐sectional study was carried out involving 952 adolescents of both genders and aged 10–19 years, divided into two groups: overweight, n = 238 and eutrophic, n = 714. Taste sensitivity, food preferences, physical activity pattern, and nutritional status were evaluated. Most adolescents failed in the sensitivity test. There was a significant association between sensitivity to salty taste and preference for evaluated tastes and nutritional status. It was verified that adolescents devote, on average, 6 hr a day with sedentary activities. Age and time spent exercising were positively associated with body mass index. Adolescents presented low taste sensitivity and prefer sweet taste while overweight individuals prefer salty. The study reveals the influence of parameters related to food preferences and physical activity patterns on the nutritional status of the youth. Practical applications Changes in sensitivity taste, dietary preferences, and in the pattern of physical activity influence the nutritional status of young. Understanding these relationships may contribute to the development of intervention strategies to prevent the onset or worsening of diseases associated with nutritional status.

Exploring adolescents’ motives for food media consumption using the theory of uses and gratifications

“…(Boy,14) Oh yes, I see sometimes something in the store and I cook it with my mom, or she cooks it. (Girl,13) There was more interest in making desserts and sweet foods, congruent with the literature on adolescents' preference for sweet foods (dos Santos et al, 2019;Johnston and Foreyt, 2014). These were also the foods they searched for on online platforms.…”

Sensory sensitivity to sour and bitter taste among people with Crohn's disease and folic acid supplementation

“…However, it is noteworthy that there were a high percentage of people with low sensitivity to sweet and salty tastes in both groups. Other researchers also observed that both healthy people and Crohn's disease patients exhibited low sensitivity to salty and sweet tastes (Bertoli et al, ; Kato & Roth, ; Martin & Bellisle, ), which could be partly explained by their dietary habits (Jayasinghe et al, ; Santos et al, ). Santos et al () found that only 18.0% of Brazilian adolescents preferring sweet taste were able to correctly identify it at refined sugar concentrations of 2.0 and 4.0%, as well as the salty taste of table salt at concentrations of 0.2 and 0.4%.…”

“…The receptors of sweet, bitter, and umami tastes have been identified in different organs (gastrointestinal tract, heart, brain, bladder, nasal respiratory epithelium, and kidney) and in some specific cells, such as B lymphocytes, but further research is necessary to investigate their influence (Ekstrand, Young, & Rasmussen, ; Laffitte et al, ). Many studies have shown that medical conditions affect the sense of taste, for example, endocrine, neurological, and nutritional factors (deficiency of niacin and vitamin B12), and viral infections (Boyce & Shone, ; Cermak, Curtin, & Bandini, ; Kato & Roth, ; Santos, Santos Marreiros, Soares de Oliveira, Torres de Freitas, & Clímaco Cruz, ; Schiffman & Graham, ). The inflammatory process in Crohn's disease is usually located in the distal part of the small intestine but it may also affect the function of the oral cavity (Padmavathi, Sharma, Astekar, Rajan, & Sowmya, ; Rowland, Fleming, & Bourke, ; Steinbach et al, ; Swora, Ślebioda, Grzymisławski, & Szponar, ).…”