From food preference development to responsive feeding – Selective studies to commemorate the life and work of Dr Leann Birch

Abstract

Dr Leann Birch was a pioneer in conducting research on infant and child eating behaviour. At the beginning of her research career, Leann recognised a significant gap in the developmental psychology literature, namely that few studies had been conducted to understand infant eating and feeding behaviours. This seems an unusual omission given that food intake is essential and that developmental milestones from milk to solids, and from being fed to becoming an autonomous eater, are obvious to most caregivers. Leann paved the way for interdisciplinary research from psychology, paediatrics and public health to explore and apply this knowledge to infant and child appetite, eating behaviour, dietary patterns, food preferences, and obesity risk. Early studies in her laboratory demonstrated that children form food preferences through experience and socialisation. Experiments published in 1979 tested the role of familiarisation through repeat exposure, and the impact of instrumental and social learning on the acquisition of food preferences. In 1984, a presentation given to the British Feeding and Drinking Group (BFDG) in Brighton set out three organising principles for understanding how children acquire food preferences: genetically pre-programmed behavioural propensities; social constraints on experience with food; and social transmission resulting from direct social interaction. Building on these three organising principles, research on child eating behaviour has flourished, including the intersection between individual differences, food experience and environmental influences on children's food preferences, energy regulation, and weight outcomes. In this review, the initial groundwork set out by Leann Birch on food preference development in children is considered followed by a discussion of how this has since inspired an interdisciplinary, international and expanding field of research on children's food intake, appetite and body weight regulation.