Neophobia

Vegetable intake among children is well below the recommended level. Estimates show only 22% of all children aged 7 to 10 years are consuming three servings per day. A healthy intake of vegetables can help prevent against chronic adult diseases and replace some higher energy foods thus leading to a reduction in the incidence of overweight and obesity. It is currently unclear why intake is so far below recommended as there are multiple factors contributing to children's eating habits, including parental influence and other influences both at school and at home.

A recent study investigated whether food neophobia and pickiness are related to vegetable consumption in 7-year-old girls and assessed if there were distinct predictors for food neophobia and pickiness. Food neophobia is an unwillingness to eat novel foods, whereas pickiness is an unwillingness to eat many familiar foods. While extensive studies on the causes and consequences of neophobia in children have been conducted, little is known about pickiness.

Subjects included families of 7-year old girls in central Pennsylvania. Food neophobia was measured using the Food Neophobia Scale for Children (FNS-C), a 6-item questionnaire and the Food Situations Questionnaire. Both measured children's willingness to try new foods. The Child Feeding Questionnaire assessed dimensions of parental attitudes regarding issues related to the child's feeding habits. One subscale of this questionnaire, Pickiness, examined parents' reports of how they perceived their child's willingness to eat during mealtimes. Girls' vegetable intake was assessed through collection of dietary information from the mothers and girls by administering three 24-hour food recalls. Children's symptoms of anxiety were measured using an adapted version of the Manifest Anxiety Scale. Mothers' and fathers' avoidance of new foods was measured using the 10-itme Food Neophobia Scale for Adults. A food frequency questionnaire was used to measure the usual dietary intake. Additionally, mothers were asked the duration in which they breastfed their daughters.

Girls who were determined to have both food neophobia and pickiness were found to consume fewer vegetables (1.1 [+ or -] 0.1) than girls with neither neophobia nor pickiness (1.6 [+ or -] 0.1). Girls with food neophobia were more anxious and had mothers with food neophobia. Picky girls had mothers with less variety in their vegetable intake (r = -0.22) and mothers who perceived their family to have little time to eat healthful foods (r = 0.36). Additionally, picky eaters were breastfed for fewer than 6 months (r = -0.25). Pickiness was predicted mainly by environmental or experiential factors subject to changes; neophobia was predicted by more enduring and dispositional factors.

Researchers suggest that intervention strategies to increase vegetable intake among children should focus on predictors of neophobia and pickiness, especially those that are subject to change.

A. Galloway, Y. Lee, L. Birch, et al. J Am Diet Assoc;103:692-698 (June, 2003). [Correspondence: Amy T. Galloway, PhD, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, S-110 South Henderson Building, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail: atg3@psu.edu].

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