Early sweet foods don’t shape toddlers’ diets — family meals matter more

New research challenges the idea that early exposure to sweet foods shapes children’s future dietary choices—find out why parental influence matters more than first bites.

Study: Sowing the seeds of taste? A novel approach to investigate the impact of early sweet exposure on children’s dietary taste patterns from 12 to 36 months. Image Credit: Here / Shutterstock

In a recent study published in The Journal of Nutrition, researchers at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, examined whether exposure to sweet or neutral-tasting foods during the initiation of complementary feeding (CF) influences children’s dietary taste patterns between 12 and 36 months of age.

Background

Children develop taste preferences early in life, and these preferences can shape their lifelong dietary habits. Studies indicate that exposure to certain tastes during infancy influences future acceptance of those flavors.

Infants naturally prefer sweet tastes, a preference that has evolutionary roots, ensuring the intake of calorie-dense foods. However, excessive early exposure to sweet flavors may reinforce this preference, potentially leading to unhealthy dietary patterns later in life. Importantly, the innate preference for sweetness may create a “ceiling effect,” making it harder to further increase liking through exposure alone.

Conversely, exposure to a variety of tastes, including bitter and sour, can promote dietary diversity and acceptance of healthier foods.

While research has explored the effects of early vegetable and fruit exposure on later eating habits, there is limited evidence on how early sweet taste exposure affects long-term dietary preferences.

Given the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity and dietary-related health concerns, it is crucial to investigate whether early sweet taste exposure influences dietary habits in later childhood.

About the study

A total of 246 Dutch infants were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the impact of early taste exposure on later dietary patterns.

Infants were assigned to one of two groups: the sweet exposure (SE) group, which received pureed fruits and sweet vegetables (e.g., carrots), and the neutral exposure (NE) group, which received pureed non-sweet vegetables (e.g., broccoli, spinach).

This exposure lasted for 15 consecutive days at the onset of CF. Mothers administered the assigned foods at home while continuing to breastfeed or formula feed. The foods were commercially available purees designed for infant palatability, which may have moderated taste intensity.

To standardize feeding practices, all infants consumed neutral-tasting rice porridge for at least five days before the intervention began.

Dietary intake was measured through three non-consecutive 24-hour recalls conducted at four time points: 12, 18, 24, and 36 months.

The reported foods were categorized into five taste clusters: ‘sour-sweet,’ ‘sweet-fatty,’ ‘fatty-salty,’ ‘fatty,’ and ‘neutral.’ Clustering was based on a taste intensity database using K-means clustering.

Proportions of daily energy intake and food weight were calculated for each taste category and compared between intervention groups over time.

Mixed models for repeated measures (MMRM) were used to analyze the effects of early exposure on dietary taste patterns. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.

Additional covariates, such as maternal age (later excluded from analysis due to non-significance), infant sex, and age at CF initiation, were considered.

Ethical approval was obtained from the relevant institutional review boards, and all participating caregivers provided written informed consent.

Study results

Children’s diets evolved significantly between 12 and 36 months. At 12 months, neutral-tasting foods accounted for 61% of total daily energy and 74% of consumed weight.

By 36 months, these proportions declined to 44% and 62%, respectively (p < 0.001). Simultaneously, energy intake from sweet-fatty foods increased from 12% to 21%, fatty-salty foods from 8% to 13%, and fatty foods from 7% to 11% (all p ≤ 0.01). However, no significant differences were found between the SE and NE groups.

Over time, children’s overall dietary energy intake increased by 26%, while food weight increased by only 7%, indicating a shift toward a higher energy density in their diets.

The number of unique foods consumed also increased, reflecting greater dietary variety. While neutral-tasting foods remained the predominant source of energy at 12 months, they gradually contributed less to the overall diet, making way for more intense and varied taste categories.

Energy and weight intake from sour-sweet foods showed different trends. While energy intake from sour-sweet foods remained stable, the weight consumed increased, indicating a growing acceptance of sour tastes. This suggests that while children consumed more of these foods in volume, their low energy density kept their calorie contribution relatively unchanged. This shift aligns with broader dietary changes observed in young children as they transition to table foods and family diets.

Despite initial expectations, exposure to sweet or neutral foods during early CF did not influence later dietary taste patterns. Both groups followed a similar trajectory, with increased intake of taste-diverse foods over time. The lack of effect may stem from infants’ preexisting high preference for sweetness, leaving little room for further reinforcement.

This finding suggests that broader environmental factors, including household food availability and parental eating habits, have a greater impact on shaping dietary patterns than early taste exposure alone.

Early taste exposure may have limited long-term effects on food preference. While exposure to bitter and sour flavors has been shown to increase acceptance of those flavors in childhood, the same effect does not appear to apply to sweet taste, potentially due to an already high innate preference for sweetness, creating a ceiling effect.

Conclusions

Early sweet taste exposure during CF initiation did not influence children’s dietary taste patterns between 12 and 36 months. Instead, all children’s diets became more taste-diverse and energy-dense over time, irrespective of initial exposure. The intervention’s short duration (15 days) and moderate taste intensity (commercial purees) may also have limited its ability to alter long-term preferences.

This suggests that broader dietary influences, such as family eating habits and cultural food preferences, play a more substantial role in shaping long-term taste preferences than early sweet taste exposure alone.