Sowing the seeds of taste? A novel approach to investigate the impact of early sweet exposure on children's dietary taste patterns from 12 to 36 months.
Carina Mueller, Monica Mars, Gertrude G Zeinstra, Corine Perenboom, Ciarán G Forde, Gerry Jager
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Early food experiences shape children's eating behavior. Whether initiating complementary feeding (CF) with sweet-tasting foods impacts the taste of later dietary patterns remains unknown. This study combined a quantitative taste intensity database with dietary assessment methods to investigate this.
Objective: To investigate whether initiating CF in infants with sweet versus neutral-tasting foods leads to different dietary taste patterns at 12 to 36 months.
Methods: 246 Dutch infants (age 20.2 ± 1.8 weeks, 129 girls) participated in a RCT; they received either sweet-tasting (n=125) or neutral-tasting (n=121) fruit and vegetable purees during the first 15 days of initial complementary feeding. Dietary intake was assessed at 12, 18, 24, and 36 months using three 24-hour recalls. Reported foods (n=1,277) were grouped into five clusters - 'sour-sweet', 'sweet-fatty', 'fatty-salty', 'fatty', and 'neutral' tasting foods - based on their taste intensity values using K-means clustering. Dietary taste patterns were calculated as the average daily intake of energy (%kcal) and weight (%grams) from each taste cluster and compared between intervention groups.
Results: Overall, children's energy intake from neutral-tasting foods decreased from 61% ± 11% at 12 months to 44% ± 12% at 36 months (p < 0.001). Weight intake from neutral foods also declined (from 74% ± 9% to 62% ± 13%, p < 0.001). Conversely, children's energy intake from sweet-fatty, fatty-salty, and fatty foods increased significantly over the study period (from 12% ± 7% to 21% ± 10%, from 8% ± 6% to 13% ± 7%, and from 7% ± 5% to 11% ± 6% respectively, all p≤0.01). No differences were observed between the two intervention groups.
Conclusion: Overall, children's diets became more diverse and intense in taste but exposure to sweet taste during early CF did not influence the dietary taste patterns in later childhood.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Nutrition (JN/J Nutr) publishes peer-reviewed original research papers covering all aspects of experimental nutrition in humans and other animal species; special articles such as reviews and biographies of prominent nutrition scientists; and issues, opinions, and commentaries on controversial issues in nutrition. Supplements are frequently published to provide extended discussion of topics of special interest.
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