Abstract
Background: Children in the United States are not meeting seafood intake recommendations. Seafood provides beneficial omega-3 fatty acids essential for cardiovascular and brain function. Repeated exposure (RE) has been used to increase the liking of fruits and vegetables. Child centered nutrition phrases (CCNP) are short developmentally appropriate phrases that help children learn basic nutrition concepts about what food does for their body. When coupled with RE, CCNP has been shown to increase the liking of select foods. Objective: To describe the liking of trout by group and time across 12 weeks of RE and CCNP.
Study Design, Settings, Participants: A 12-week randomized control trial enrolled children aged 4 – 6 years into CTRL (n=16), RE (n=19), and RE + CCNP (n=15) groups. All groups tasted trout at baseline and follow-up. The RE and RE+CCNP groups were offered two ounces of trout each week. When offered trout, the RE+CCNP group was told, “Trout helps your brain so you can learn and play”. The control group played weekly puzzle games during the 12-week study period.
Measurable Outcomes/Analysis: Descriptive statistics were used for this thesis. Frequency counts and percentages were used to describe the liking of trout by group, time, and responses from the demographic and dietary survey
Results: Fifty subjects completed the study. At baseline 75% of the control group expressed liking (rating “Just Okay” or “Yummy”). In the RE group 68% of the children who tried trout at baseline expressed liking and in the RE+CCNP 60% of children who tried trout at baseline expressed liking. At the follow-up tasting 73% of the control group children that tried trout expressed liking, decreasing 2% from baseline. In the RE group 83% of the RE children that tried trout expressed liking, increasing 15% from baseline. In the RE+CCNP group, 86% of the children that tried trout expressed liking, increasing 26% from baseline.
Conclusion: Preliminary data analysis indicates participation in a 12-week intervention study increases children’s liking of trout in the RE and RE+CCNP groups. When children are served trout, they like it.