34 Food Choice
ExposureHuman beings need to consume a variety of foods in order to have a
balanced diet, and yet show a fear and avoidance of novel foodstuffs, known
as neophobia. This has been called the “omnivore’s paradox” (Rozin, 1976).
Young children will show neophobic responses to food but must come to
accept and eat foods which may originally appear as threatening. Research
has shown that mere exposure to novel foods can change children’s pre-
ferences. For example, Birch and Marlin (1982) gave 2-year-old children
novel foods over a 6-week period. One food was presented 20 times, one
10 times, one 5 times, while one remained novel. The results showed a direct
relationship between exposure and food preference, and indicated that a
minimum of about 8 to 10 exposures was necessary before preferences began
to shift significantly. However, research also indicates that the impact of
exposure to new foods is accumulative, such that if more and more new foods
are added to a diet they take less exposures before they become acceptable
(Williams et al., 2008). Wardle et al. (2003) carried a trial which involved
identifying a least preferred vegetable in children aged 2–6 years, then assign-
ing them to one of three groups: exposure, information, or control. The results
showed that after 14 days, those in the exposure group involving daily expo-
sure to the vegetable ate more of the vegetable in a taste test and reported higher
ratings of liking and ranking compared to the other two groups. Similarly,
research indicates that children can identify and are willing to taste veg-
etables if their parents purchase them (Busick et al., 2008). Simple exposure
can therefore change intake and preference. Neophobia has been shown to
be greater in males than females (both adults and children), to run in families
(Hursti and Sjoden, 1997), and to be minimal in infants who are being weaned
onto solid foods but greater in toddlers and preschool children (Birch et al.,
1998). At times neophobia persists and is sometimes called being a picky
eateror a fussy eater, and it can be measured using a neophobia questionnaire
(MacNicol et al., 2003). This is considered the avoidance of a variety of
foods even when these foods are familiar to them (Dovey et al., 2008).
One hypothesized explanation for the impact of exposure is the “learned
safety” view (Kalat and Rozin, 1973), which suggests that preference increases
because eating the food has not resulted in any negative consequences. This
suggestion has been supported by studies which exposed children either
to just the sight of food or to both the sight and taste of food. The results
showed that looking at novel foods was not sufficient to increase preference
and that tasting was necessary (Birch et al., 1987). It would seem, however,