Eat your vegetables: Investigating how infants learn about healthy foods
Final Report Abstract
Developing healthy eating habits is important in the first years of life because many food preferences are acquired early in development. However, young children often do not readily accept novel foods and healthy food items (e.g., fruits and vegetables) tend to be the most commonly rejected itemsTherefore, the present project aimed to investigate particular actions infants rely on to learn that a novel food is safe to eat, and thus overcome their initial avoidance of that food. We focused on two specific types of actions: (1) eating, and (2) food processing (e.g., cutting). Eating actions and food processing actions are essential components of human food behaviors, but the impact of food processing actions on food learning remains largely unknown, particularly in infancy. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with a 12-month-old in which infants viewed a side-by-side video display of an adult performing two different actions with novel foods across three conditions (eating, food processing, and a food-irrelevant control). We tested whether infants differentially attended to food processing actions - and whether they viewed food processing actions similarly to eating actions - by assessing which action infants looked at longer and their pupillary changes while looking at each action. Then, we offered infants the novel foods shown in the videos and measured their choices and eating behaviors. Our results indicate that infants’ attention is captured by food-relevant actions relative to a control action. Infants looked longer at eating and food-processing actions, although their pupil dilation was greatest for our food-irrelevant control action. Further, infants reliably chose novel foods they saw an actor eat. These findings help identify important mechanisms that increase acceptance of healthy foods early in life.
