Original title: Factors Influencing Children’s Eating Behaviours
This review looks at studies on what shapes children’s food choices and eating habits. It finds that parents’ own food habits and the ways they feed their children are especially influential. Early experiences with different tastes may also help children eat healthily later. The review says prevention programmes should involve parents and consider their education and socioeconomic circumstances.
Imagine a child learning what to eat at home. It can be hard to choose unfamiliar foods when the meals and habits around you point in another direction. In this paper, the family’s everyday food habits stand for the influences on a child’s choices, while trying different tastes stands for early food experiences that may support healthy eating later.
Parents and paediatricians can use this evidence to support healthier eating habits early in life. The review points to practical steps: offer children a range of nutritious foods and model eating them yourself.
The authors note that a narrative review has difficulty bringing together complex interactions across large sets of studies. The abstract does not report how strong individual effects are or whether the reviewed findings establish cause and effect.
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Factors Influencing Children’s Eating Behaviours — Silvia Scaglioni, Valentina De Cosmi, Valentina Ciappolino et al. — Nutrients — doi:10.3390/nu10060706
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.