Developing Tailored Clinical Resources for Promoting Children's Healthy Food Preferences

Repeated exposure is a food preference learning strategy with a large evidence base, but there is a deficit in the literature regarding its effectiveness for children higher in food fussiness. The goal of this research is to identify strategies for young children who might need alternatives to repeated exposure to help them learn to accept vegetables. The approaches that will be evaluated are modeling and associative conditioning, and it is hypothesized that in both groups, children will show greater liking and intake of their target food post-intervention compared to baseline. Group differences in this potential increase, as well as feasibility and acceptance of the intervention strategies among the target population will be explored and summarized.

The study will be interventional. Families, stratified by child age and sex, will be randomized to 1 of 2 study groups: associative conditioning or modeling. Both groups will attend two laboratory visits, one baseline and one post-intervention assessment, and between these will complete 8 target vegetable taste exposures across 4 intervention weeks.

During screening, parents will be asked questions that will inform selection of their child's target vegetable (and dip if applicable). Using 3 vegetables from the literature, parents will report on whether they have served each of those vegetables, whether their child tasted it, and whether they would like their child to eat that vegetable. One of these vegetables will be chosen as the target vegetable to be tasted by the child during the study. The goal is to assign a vegetable that the child could use help learning to like/eat, that the parent would also like to serve at home. During screening, parents will also be asked to rate their child's liking of specific dips, which will inform which dip is provided to those that are assigned to the associative conditioning group (i.e. a dip they are likely to enjoy will like). Vegetables, and dips if applicable, will be provided.

After screening, a ~1 hour baseline laboratory visit will be scheduled. During the visit, written informed consent (parent) and verbal assent (child) will be completed. The child will be able to play with toys in the waiting room with the research staff and parent prior to the assent procedures to allow the child to acclimate to the environment and staff. Children will then be told that it is time to taste foods, and that they will come to a different room, with study staff and their parent, if they would like to do this activity. Vegetables will then be served to children (without any accompaniments/dip or modeling), and children's liking and intake will be measured via parent perceptions of liking and weighed plate waste, respectively. The child will be asked to try a bite of the vegetable. Then one-half cup of the study vegetable will be provided to the child, and they will be told they can eat as much or as little of the vegetable as they like. Parents will be asked to rate how much they think their child liked the vegetable, and the vegetable will be pre and post weighed to indicate consumption. At this visit, parents will also complete a survey that includes questions about demographics. At the end of the session, families will be randomized (i.e., associative conditioning or modeling groups) and provided with the intervention materials needed to complete the at-home exposures, including the target vegetable, instructions, and dips if applicable. Study staff will provide and explain the activity materials to families. Parents will be given opportunities to ask any questions, and staff will be trained to provide guidance and help problem solve implementation barriers as needed.

During the 4-week intervention period, parents will complete 2 exposures per week (8 total). During exposures, children in the associative conditioning group will be served a target vegetable with a liked dip. In the modeling group, a target vegetable will be served to both parent and child, with specific instructions provided to the parent on how to taste and react to the vegetable. Text reminders will be sent prior to each week to remind parents about the exposures. Parents will also complete brief, <5 minute online surveys at the end of each week. Surveys will assess whether the tastings were implemented as assigned, whether the child tasted/ate the vegetable, and parent perceptions of the child's liking of the vegetable.