Eating Behaviours in Childhood

Question 1

What percentage of UK parents introduce solid foods by months?

Answer 1

30%

Question 2

What percentage of UK parents introduce solid foods by 5 months?

Answer 2

75%

Question 3

What percentage of UK parents introduce solid foods by 6 months?

Answer 3

94%

Question 4

What age do the WHO recommend weaning starts?

Answer 4

6 months

Question 5

Why do people start weaning earlier than the recommended stage?

Answer 5

1) Belief that the baby is hungry (milk consumed through breastfeeding isn’t meeting their baby’s hunger needs)
2) To encourage better sleeping patterns
3) To follow the routine used with older children

Question 6

What can be the consequences of delaying weaning?

Answer 6

Not exposing a child to a range of tastes and textures means they don’t develop control over their tongue movements that are required for eating, and can result in picky eating.

Question 7

What happens when an infant’s gag reflex becomes hypersensitive?

Answer 7

Learned response from a negative experience can become generalised to all foods, including the sight of foods, and requires professional help to ‘unlearn’ the response

Question 8

What is Pica?

Answer 8

An eating disorder where an individual consumes non-food substances with no nutritional value

Question 9

What is neophobia, and how does it change across development?

Answer 9

Fear of new foods, decreases with age

Question 10

Outline the findings from Birch et al. (1998) study about food exposure

Answer 10

1 exposure lead to a 50% increase in intake in 4-7 month olds. More exposures are needed for the same intake increase after weaning

Question 11

Is there a critical period for weaning?

Answer 11

No, more of a sensitive period.
Older children/adults accept novel food but more exposures are needed than during the weaning period

Question 12

What tastes do children like and dislike? Why?

Answer 12

Like: sweet tastes
Greater post-ingestive feedback
Familiar taste (breastmilk is sweet)

Dislike: bitter tastes
Less post-ingestive feedback
Tastes associated with illness or treatment

Question 13

When does eating in the absence of hunger increase? Who studied it?

Answer 13

Birch et al. (2003)
between age of 5 and 9

Question 14

When do external factors start to affect eating behaviours? Outline the study relating to portion size

Answer 14

age 4
Rolls et al. (2000)
Offered different portion sizes of macaroni cheese to children
2-3 year olds ate the same amount regardless of portion size
4-6 year olds eat 60%+ if the portion size is doubled

Question 15

Outline the results of a study comparing spoon-fed and baby-led weaning

Answer 15

Townsend and Pitchford (2012)
Spoon-fed: increased obesity, preference for sweet foods
Baby-led: increased underweight, preference for carbohydrates
Food preferences were due to food exposures

Question 16

What are some issues with baby-led weaning?

Answer 16

1) only effective if the caregiver has a balanced diet; some caregivers don’t have an appropriate diet for baby-led weaning (Rowan & Harris, 2012)
2) infants are rarely ready to self-feed before 6 months; if guidance changes to recommend earlier weaning then baby-led weaning is not as appropriate a spoon-feeding
3) Some evidence to suggest baby-led weaning infants consume less food and more milk; could lead to nutritional deficiencies

Question 17

What are some of the issues with spoon-fed weaning?

Answer 17

1) prolonged smooth food consumption; delays the development of oral skills, which can impact language development (Mason et al., 2005)
2) Less exposure to different textures; more food refusal later on (Northstone et al., 2001)
3) Exposure to textures from processed baby food does not transfer to homemade meals (Birch et al., 1998)

Question 18

Outline the findings from a study on inappropriate feeding and obesity

Answer 18

Thompson and Bentley (2013)
78% of infants received age-inappropriate solids and liquids at 3 month old
10% were given fruit juice from 2 months old
Resulting in higher mean daily intake of over 100 kcal and higher weight-for-length