Food and behaviour Flashcards
What is malnutrition?
Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/ or nutrients.
What is undernutrition?
includes stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age) and micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals).
What is obesity?
diet-related noncommunicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer).”
Why should Drs have some understanding of the psychology of/ behaviours associated with eating?
Understanding “normal” psychological processes related to eating
Be able to understand and adequately respond to/ advise patients
What are the early influences on feeding/ eating behaviour?
Maternal diet and taste preference development
Role of breastfeeding for taste preference and body weight regulation
Parenting practices
Age of introduction of solid food, types of food exposed to during the weaning period
and beyond
Why is the maternal diet important for children?
Early flavour exposure
Taste and olfactory systems are capable of detecting flavour information prior to birth (Schaal, Marlier et al. 2000)
Like other mammals, human foetuses swallow a significant amount of amniotic fluid during gestation, by the final trimester (~ one litre per day)
(Pritchard 1965)
Amniotic fluid and human milk transmit volatiles* from the maternal diet
providing early chemosensory experience
In utero babies can prefer certain odours, how does this happen?
15 - 24 hr old babies orient towards a cotton swab containing garlic if their mothers typically consume garlic in the diet (Hepper,1995)
Newborn babies prefer anise odour if mothers had consumed anise flavour (e.g. fennel) during pregnancy (Schaal et al., 2000)
Neonates orient towards the odour of their own amniotic fluid and mothers breast milk, suggesting that prenatal sensory exposure can influence neonatal preferences
What can happen in the utero environment?
Infants can demonstrate preference
Amniotic fluid is influenced by the maternal diet
In utero environment influences taste exposure
Highlights the potential role of the maternal diet on taste preference development
Why is breastfeeding an issue in public health?
Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID)
Around 50% of mothers initiate some breastfeeding in the first eight weeks
The prevalence of breastfeeding is particularly low among very young mothers and disadvantaged socio-economic groups, potentially widening existing health inequalities
What is the composition of breastmilk?
Efficient Digestion Enzymes: lipase, lysozyme Transfer factors: lactoferrin
Anti-Infective Bifidus factor White cells Oligosaccarides
Everyday Health
Antibodies
Entero/broncho-mammary pathways Viral fragments
lactoferrin – aids dental hygiene
Gut Protection Epidermal growth factor Secretory IgA
Anti-inflammatories
What are the advantages of breastfeeding?
Breast feeding confers an advantage for:
Acceptance of novel foods during weaning (Mennella 2015)
Evidence to suggest that children who were breastfed are less picky eaters in childhood (Galloway et al. 2003)
Have a diet richer in fruit and vegetables if BF > 3m
Transmission of chemosensory information via maternal milk and preference learning by neonates has been demonstrated in animal models
What do long term studies of breast and formula fed infants illustarte?
Greater preferences for the flavours to which they have been exposed through the amniotic fluid [Mennella et al. 2001], breast milk [Mennella et al. 2001], or formula [Mennella et al. 2005]
Effects of early experience on taste and flavour preferences has been shown to last until at least 10 years of age [Liem & Mennella 2002, Sausenthaler et al. 2010]
Evidence suggests a lower incidence of obesity in infants and children who have been breast-fed [Lioret et al. 2023]
Male child age 4
Food refusal – based on texture and taste
Selective/ picky eating
Long meal times - >40 minutes
Mealtimes described as “very distressing” by the parents
What should we do with this child?
Caregivers use tactics such as coercion, persuasion and contingencies as a
means of encouraging children to consume new foods
This quite often has a paradoxical effect (Birch et al. 1980) – using food as an incentive to eat a novel food increases liking for the reward and reduces liking for the novel food (Birch et al., 1980)
What is NOFED and how is it treated?
Non-Organic Feeding Disorders (NOFEDs) :
High prevalence in children younger than 6 years old
Characterized by feeding aversion, food refusal, food selectivity, fussy eaters, failure to advance to age-appropriate foods, negative mealtime interactions
Parents of children with NOFEDs often use maladaptive parental feeding practices (Romano et al. 2015)
Pressure to eat, authoritarian parenting style, restriction, using food as
a reward, indulgent/ neglectful feeding practices
Give me a summary of early feeding behaviours
The first 2 years of life are a sensitive period for the development of flavour and food preferences
“Chemical continuity”: transmission of certain flavours from the maternal
diet via amniotic fluid and then breast milk
Improving maternal and children’s diets is critical from a health promotion, disease prevention perspective
Parental feeding practices can foster or prevent “healthful” eating
behaviour in young and older children (and through to adulthood)
Complex role of parental feeding practices in the context of food insecurity…
