The root of the problem: increasing root vegetable intake in preschool children by repeated exposure and flavour flavour learning

Determining Factors and Critical Periods in the Formation of Eating Habits: Results from the Habeat Project

“…Concerning the generalisation of learning from one vegetable to another vegetable, there are conflicting results in both the literature and the Habeat results. However, Habeat results seem to indicate that generalisation of learning could occur when the sensory properties of a novel vegetable are very close to the sensory properties of the "learned" vegetable [10] . Despite the fact that repeated exposure might be effective for most children up to 3 years of age, about 15% of the children were considered "non-eaters" eating less than 10 g by the 5th exposure; older pre-school and fussier children were more likely to be "non-eaters" [17] .…”

“…This was done in Habeat. All studies showed that repeated exposure to a vegetable is an effective strategy to increase the intake and liking of an unfamiliar vegetable among infants and young children [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] ( Table 2 ). Concerning the generalisation of learning from one vegetable to another vegetable, there are conflicting results in both the literature and the Habeat results.…”

Dissociation from beloved unhealthy brands decreases preference for and consumption of vegetables

“…This is because dissociating from these brands depletes self-regulatory resources (e.g., Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), which are required to make healthy food choices (Lisjak, Bonezzi, Kim, & Rucker, 2015;Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). We argue that vegetables in particular require available self-regulatory resources because the preference for them is not innate and must be learned (e.g., Ahern, Caton, Blundell, & Hetherington, 2014;Ahern et al, 2013;Birch, 1999;Wertz & Wynn, 2014;Zeinstra, Koelen, Kok, & de Graaf, 2009). Thus, after people dissociate from beloved unhealthy food brands, we observe (1) reduced preference for vegetables (studies ☆ Acknowledgements: All authors contributed equally to this research.…”

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.…”