Food Preferences

The term preference refers to the selection or choice of one item over the other. Thus, food preferences mean one's choice or selection of some foods but not others. In common usage, however, food preferences simply refer to the foods that one likes. Food preferences vary across individuals, particularly between people who are from different cultural backgrounds. For example, some children born in regions of India or Africa acquire preferences for chili peppers when they are young, while the typical American child tends to find these foods too hot and often dislikes them. A combination of genetic predispositions and environmental factors influence human food preferences, and for every individual, these factors might be different, thus complicating the study of human food preferences. Of importance to the study of human obesity, most humans tend to prefer foods that are sweet or high in fat, and these foods are often the most energy dense and overindulgence can result in obesity. This entry will give an overview of how food preferences are formed, and will review the salient factors that affect human food preference, both genetic and environmental. Where possible, direct parallels will be drawn between food preferences and obesity.

A widely accepted but incorrect viewpoint is that food preferences are innate or inborn responses to the [Page 298]body's need for specific nutrients. This view stemmed largely from a misinterpretation of the work of pediatrician Clara Davis, who performed studies in the early part of the 20th century where toddlers were offered a variety of foods, and from these, they tended to choose “healthy” foods that were suitable for development. Because Davis used such a limited variety of foods in her study, all of which tended to be healthy, these findings cannot be translated to the current food environment, rich with energy-dense and palatable convenience foods. In this environment, it is apparent that children do not always choose healthy foods, and in fact, need much guidance to learn to prefer foods that will result in optimal health and avoid the development of obesity.

Common belief holds that a person's food preferences are at least partially determined at birth. In truth, such food preferences can be and frequently are learned throughout a lifetime of eating.

Researchers tend to agree that food preferences begin to develop early in life and are primarily learned as a result of interactions a child has between food and his or her environment. The terminology applied to this process has most commonly been Pavlovian or associative conditioning. The term environment in this case can mean any context, social cue, or postingestive (biological) consequence that is paired with recent ingestion of a food, or an eating experience. Thus, food preferences are not innate or inborn, as suggested by Davis's early work, but rather are learned throughout life by any number of these shaping experiences. As an example, high-fat foods like desserts and sweets are often used as rewards or are the centerpieces to many holidays. Some have argued that the positive experiences that surround these foods serve to increase preferences for them. In contrast, vegetables are often presented as contingencies to dessert foods, when parents use tactics such as “eat your vegetables, or you can't have any dessert.” Research from Leann Birch's laboratory, a child psychologist from Penn State University, has determined that these strategies can decrease preferences for vegetables in the long run, possibly because the contextual cues to [Page 299]consumption of these foods are predominantly negative for the child experiencing them.

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