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This study investigated the effectiveness of the ‘Food Dudes’ school-based intervention consisting of rewards, peer-modeling and food exposure on food neophobia and the liking of fruits and vegetables (FV) in a large cohort of children. Five-hundred sixty children recruited from three schools were assigned to the experimental or control group. For 16 days, children in the experimental group watched motivational videos, were read letters to encourage them to eat FV and received a small reward for eating one portion of both a fruit and a vegetable. The control group was only provided with FV for the same time period. Food neophobia and liking were measured in both groups of children before and after the intervention, and a follow-up measurement was carried out 6 months later. The intervention was effective in reducing food neophobia and, most importantly, a persistent effect was observed 6 months after the intervention as children of the experimental group showed significantly lower neophobia scores than the control group. Additionally, the program was effective in increasing liking for both FV; however, this effect was maintained only for fruit after 6 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Food acceptance and food choice are largely driven by taste preferences and liking, particularly among children. It is often assumed that overweight individuals differ from their normal-weight counterparts in that they prefer foods that are thought implicated in the development of obesity. Despite this, previous findings concerning the relationship between adults’ adiposity and food liking are inconclusive, and research in children is limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship among body mass index (BMI), food neophobia and liking of fruits and vegetables (F&V) in a large cohort of Italian children ( n = 528, aged 6–9 years) in an ecological environment. According to principal component analysis (PCA), the BMI was unrelated to either the food neophobia or the liking values. Food neophobia was negatively correlated with liking of both F&V, but liking of vegetables contributed more in discriminating children according to their neophobia level than fruits liking. This suggests that liking of vegetables is a better indicator of children’s food neophobia than liking of fruits. This outcome was further confirmed as low, medium and highly neophobic children differed significantly for their vegetables liking but not for fruits liking. Food neophobia was higher in boys than in girls and decreased systematically with increasing age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...