What is food neophobia?

The fear or refusal to try foods is known as food neophobia. We are talking about a characteristic behavior of a stage of children’s development. Food neophobia, whose literal meaning is “fear of trying unknown foods,” refers to the fact of rejecting new food products.

Sharing a meal with family or friends is usually a very pleasant activity and in most cultures it is the basis of celebrations and celebrations. It is an excellent experience… unless there is a person with food neophobia in the family. So, meal times are often exhausting, chaotic and involve constant negotiation.

Eating is often understood as a very simple process. It would just be a matter of putting the 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 body systems.

Why does food neophobia occur?

This reluctance to try new foods is characteristic of all omnivorous animals, among which we can place ourselves. This is an innate safety reaction to the potential dangers of an environment in which many foods can be toxic. Thus, when in contact with new foods, the attitude is one of caution, avoiding them whenever possible while favoring consumption of familiar foods. Therefore, only after trying them a number of times are they accepted as safe food.

Another hypothesis has more to do with flavor learning.. People have receptors for four basic tastes: salty, bitter, sour and sweet. Sweet and salty flavors are innately preferred by people from birth. The inclination towards sweets, present in newborns, is generally greater in children compared to adults.

Learning flavors begins even before the baby is born. In this way, certain flavors consumed during pregnancy are preferred shortly after birth compared to others. Like pregnancy, breastfeeding is a good time to learn. As has been seen, some flavors pass through breast milk. Therefore, exposure to flavors at this stage of life can be the first lesson about flavor.

What are the characteristics of food neophobia?

Food neophobia appears mainly in two critical age periods: during weaning (4-8 months) and during the autonomy period (15-36 months). In the first, the mother-child bond favors overcoming neophobia 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 negative palatability prejudices, that is, it is assumed that new foods will have an unpleasant taste.. Thus, it is important to create positive experiences that are associated with trying new products. In these cases, imitation behaviors obtain good results. For example, if the child observes that the parents eat these foods and show signs of pleasure, it is very likely that the children will agree to try them.

Reluctance towards new products occurs more in food:

Of Animal origin compared to those of non-animal origin.Raw compared to cooked ones. Of flavors sour or bitter in front of sweets.

What is the best way to deal with a child with food neophobia?

Studies show that parents’ attitudes toward their child’s behavior have a considerable impact on the development of children’s food preferences. Thus, to stimulate the development of a beneficial diet, it is important to take into account that parents have a preconception of the foods they offer their children. For example, a restrictive attitude towards tasty foods causes their preference to increasewhile a taxing attitude towards certain foods usually has the opposite effect.

Pleasant situations in which the child shares the experience with the parents tend to provide positive meanings towards the foods consumed in that situation, and vice versa. All of this constitutes proof of the importance of the parents’ response to their children’s eating behavior in order to achieve the development of healthy food preferences.

Despite everything stated above, Neophobia usually decreases as the child approaches five or six years of age. In this way, knowing that your children, when faced with a new taste, need patience to overcome neophobia can provide the feeling of security and firmness with which it is necessary to act to facilitate the acquisition of healthy habits.

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