Food neophobia in children

Abstract

Eating habits are formed from the early childhood through experience gained from the contact with foods and as a result of observation of the environment. One of the feeding disorders, specific for the childhood, is food neophobia, defined as an attitude towards food, which manifests as a persistent reluctance to eat new foods, avoiding tasting unknown products and unwillingness to accept newly introduced flavours or unknown consistency of food. It should be differentiated from pickiness, which are a typical stage of children’s development. Food neophobia is a significant problem from both psychological and dietary perspective. The mechanism conditioning the onset of food neophobia has not been fully understood. It can be determined by the combination of biological, psychological and environmental factors, which include: various genetic conditions, individual personality predispositions, the level of child’s familiarity with the taste, the moment and the method of introducing new products and parents’ attitude towards food. The health consequences of food neophobia refer mainly to the potential loss of benefits due to an imbalanced diet and reducing the consumption of products rich in valuable nutrients. The severity of food neophobia determines the way of feeding children, forming their eating habits for further life.