As omnivores, young children learn to eat. This learning includes what to eat, when to eat, and even how much to eat. The research proposed continues to investigate the role of learning in food intake regulation during early childhood. This information is significant because it suggests ways in which experimental history contributes to the development of individual differences in intake regulation, including problems of energy balance, such as obesity and eating disorders. Results may also provide the basis of strategies for prevention of these problems of energy balance, which have proved so difficult to treat. Included are investigations of factors influencing (1) the acquisition and modification of food preferences, and (2) the initiation, maintenance, and termination of eating. As in the previously funded project, this research will focus on the role of associative conditioning. Evidence obtained in the previously funded research is the basis of this proposal, and indicates that (1) food preferences can be modified as a result of association with the social contexts in which eating occurs, (2) children can be sensitive to caloric density differences in foods and (3) children's eating patterns show evidence of associative conditioning of food cues to physiological consequences: internal physiological cues arising from ingestion of foods differing in caloric density can serve as USs in associative conditioning to food orosensory cues, which serve as CSs. Proposed experiments will address the following questions: 1) Can state dependent food preferences be conditioned through the repeated association of orosensory cues with differing caloric consequences, with children learning to prefer high caloric density foods to low caloric density ones when hungry, and showing a reverse pattern when satiated? 2) Does such conditioning occur more readily for novel than familiar foods? 3) Can the initiation of meals be conditioned to arbitrary external cues? 4) Can preferences for initially novel foods be altered through association with familiar flavorants? Preschool children's (2- to 5-year-olds) consumption and food preferences will be investigated in associative conditioning paradigms in which they receive repeated experience with eating.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD019752-06
Application #
3317257
Study Section
Human Development and Aging Subcommittee 3 (HUD)
Project Start
1985-09-01
Project End
1991-08-31
Budget Start
1990-09-01
Budget End
1991-08-31
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
1990
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Department
Type
Schools of Earth Sciences/Natur
DUNS #
041544081
City
Champaign
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
61820
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Birch, L L; Johnson, S L; Jones, M B et al. (1993) Effects of a nonenergy fat substitute on children's energy and macronutrient intake. Am J Clin Nutr 58:326-33
Birch, L L; McPhee, L S; Bryant, J L et al. (1993) Children's lunch intake: effects of midmorning snacks varying in energy density and fat content. Appetite 20:83-94
Steinberg, L A; O'Connell, N C; Hatch, T F et al. (1992) Tryptophan intake influences infants' sleep latency. J Nutr 122:1781-91
Johnson, S L; McPhee, L; Birch, L L (1991) Conditioned preferences: young children prefer flavors associated with high dietary fat. Physiol Behav 50:1245-51
Birch, L L; McPhee, L; Steinberg, L et al. (1990) Conditioned flavor preferences in young children. Physiol Behav 47:501-5
Birch, L L; McPhee, L; Sullivan, S et al. (1989) Conditioned meal initiation in young children. Appetite 13:105-13
Birch, L L; McPhee, L; Sullivan, S (1989) Children's food intake following drinks sweetened with sucrose or aspartame: time course effects. Physiol Behav 45:387-95