Food Neophobia in Children!
Twisting your nose when having to try some different food is common among children. There are many factors that may be behind this resistance, including food neophobia. Have you heard? In this case, trying new foods is a fear.
Fear or refusal to taste food is known as food neophobia. We speak of a behavior characteristic of a stage of child development. Food neophobia, whose literal meaning is "fear of experiencing unknown foods," refers to the rejection of new food products.
Sharing a meal with family or friends is generally a very enjoyable activity and, in most cultures, it is the basis for celebrations and parties. It is an excellent experience ... unless there is a person with food neophobia in the family. Then, the meals are often exhaustive, chaotic and involve constant negotiation.
Often, the act of eating is understood as a very simple process. It would only be putting food in your mouth, chewing and swallowing. But that is not reality. Eating is an incredibly complex process that can be a real challenge for many people, since it requires the cooperation and coordination of a large number of bodily systems.
Why does neophobia occur?
This reluctance to experiment with new foods is characteristic of all the animators, among whom we can place ourselves. It is a safety solution of an environment in which many foods can be toxic. Thus, counting on new foods, the attitude is one of caution, avoiding whenever possible and favoring or consuming the most sought after vacations by the family. That is why, if you are experienced for a certain number of times, it is an oil as a safe food.
Another hypothesis has more to do with learning flavors. We have receptors for four basic flavors: salty, bitter, sour and sweet. Sweet and salty flavors are naturally preferred by people since they are born. The inclination to sweet, present in the newborn, is generally greater in children, when compared with adults.
The learning of the flavors begins before the baby is born. In this way, certain flavors consumed in pregnancy are preferred shortly after birth, compared to others. Like pregnancy, breastfeeding is a good time to learn. As we have seen, some flavors pass through breast milk. Therefore, exposure to flavors in this phase of life can be the first lesson about them.
What are the characteristics of food neophobia?
The alimentary neophobia appears, mainly, in two critical periods of the age: during the weaning (4-8 months) and during the period of autonomy (15-36 months). In the first, the mother-child bond favors neophobic overcoming as the child feels protected by the parents. Therefore, the most problematic period appears around 15 months, when the child begins to walk.
One of the characteristics of food neophobia is that it is accompanied by preconceptions of negative palatability, that is, it is assumed that the new foods will have an unpleasant taste. Thus, it is important to create positive experiences associated with the inclusion of new products. In these cases, the behaviors by imitation obtain good results. For example, if the child observes that the parents eat these foods, showing signs that they like them, it is very likely that the children agree to experience them.
The reluctance towards new products occurs more in food:
Of animal origin compared to those of non-animal origin.
Raw in relation to the cooked.
Of sour or bitter flavors compared to sweets.
What is the best way to act before a child with food neophobia?
Studies show that the attitude of parents in relation to the child's behavior has a considerable impact on the development of the child's food preferences. Thus, to encourage the development of a beneficial diet, it is important to bear in mind that parents have a pre-concept in relation to the foods they offer their children. For example, a restrictive attitude towards tasty foods causes their preference to increase, while an attitude of imposing certain foods tends to have the opposite effect. Baby crying without wanting to eat.
Pleasurable situations in which the child shares the experience with the parents tends to contribute positive meanings to the foods consumed in that situation, and vice versa. All this is evidence of the importance of the parents' response to the children's eating behavior, in order to achieve the development of healthy food preferences.
Despite all that has been explained above, neophobia usually decreases when the child approaches five or six years of age. In this way, knowing that their children, in the face of a new taste, need patience to overcome neophobia, can provide the sense of security and firmness with which it is necessary to act to facilitate the acquisition of healthy habits.