Abstract
An exposure to sweetened and fatty foods early in life may be involved in high liking later in life. The objective is to investigate the association between dietary exposure to carbohydrate, sugars and fat in infancy, with liking for sweetness, fattiness and fattiness-and-sweetness sensations at 8-to-12-year-old. Analyses were conducted on 759 French children from the EDEN mother-child cohort. Carbohydrate, sugar or fat intake, being a consumer of added sugars or added fats were assessed at 8 and 12 months using 3-day food records. The liking score (0–10) for the different sensations was assessed through an online child-completed questionnaire. Associations were tested by linear regressions adjusted for main confounders and the interaction with sex was tested. None of the early dietary exposure variables was related to fattiness liking. Carbohydrate intake at 8 months was positively but weakly associated with liking for sweetness-and-fattiness. In girls only, carbohydrate intake at 12 months was positively associated with liking for sweetness. Globally, no marked associations were observed between infant dietary exposure to sweet and fat and liking for sweetness and fattiness in young children. The positive link in girls between early carbohydrate exposure and later liking for sweetness needs to be confirmed in further studies.
Highlights
According to the “developmental origin of health and disease” hypothesis, an unbalanced diet in early life may contribute to adverse cardiometabolic outcomes later in life [1]
A body of evidence has shown that diet quality in infancy could influence food preferences [2,3,4] and food intake [5,6,7] later in childhood because of both the tracking of dietary patterns throughout childhood and early learning mechanisms [8]
The present study aimed to investigate the associations between infant dietary exposure to carbohydrate, sugars and fat and liking for sweetness, fattiness and fattiness-andsweetness sensations in 8-to-12-year-old children, accounting for a potential moderating effect of sex on the associations
Summary
According to the “developmental origin of health and disease” hypothesis, an unbalanced diet in early life may contribute to adverse cardiometabolic outcomes later in life [1]. “Western-like” [9], “adult foods” [10], “biscuits, sweets and crisps” [11], “processed and fast foods” [5], and “noncore foods” patterns [12]). In this context, it is important to understand the degree at which the hedonic dimension related to food experience (e.g., food preference, food liking) is influenced by early dietary exposure [13].
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