Psychological Influences on the Childhood Diet

Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802

Psychological influences on the childhood diet are addressed. The focus is on factors that influence the formation of children's food preferences. Evidence for links among food preferences, dietary intake and children's adiposity is presented, with an emphasis on dietary fat. Few food and flavor preferences are innate; most are learned via experience with food and eating and involve associative conditioning of food cues to aspects of the child's eating environment, especially the social contexts and physiological consequences of eating. Parents' child-feeding practices are central in this early feeding environment and affect children's food preferences and their regulation of energy intake. An understanding of how children's food preferences are acquired is essential in developing strategies to improve the quality of children's dietary intake.

The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 128 No. 2 February 1998, pp. 407S-410S
Copyright ©1998 by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences

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