Skip to main content
ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #215272
Title: An assessment of children's willingness to try new foods in the rural Lower Mississippi Delta (LMD)

Author
item STRICKLAND, EARLINE - DELTA NIRI
item McCabe Sellers, Beverly
item Lowery, Julie
item Nuss, Henry
item Bogle, Margaret

Submitted to: Journal of American Dietetic Association
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/24/2007
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Food choices for rural families in the Lower Mississippi Delta are limited to a great extent to availability and access. Parents may be unwilling to introduce unfamiliar foods to their children, and this limits their exposure to new foods. Often these factors lead to a child's unwillingness to try a new food such as fruit or vegetable. Children's willingness to taste new foods when offered could provide a positive direction for helping them and their families address the obesity problem in the Mississippi Delta.

Technical Abstract: Our purpose was to assess elementary school children's willingness to eat an unfamiliar food at and away from home. Children often eat the same foods repeatedly, and those patterns have resulted in intakes that do not meet the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) set for children by the National Academy of Science. Repeated and limited food patterns in children may lead to food neophobia throughout their lives. The impact of food neophobia may have a profound influence on children in the LMD. Children in the Delta are at a higher risk for nutritional-related problems, especially obesity, because of other non-health-related problems that exist within the home. Children were recruited from summer programs in the three Delta NIRI communities, one each in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Seventy-five children completed the Willingness to Try New Foods questionnaire. The four-point Likert scale instrument contained 29 questions ranging from: if offered new foods, would they be willing to try the foods, and in what settings would the child feel comfortable trying the foods.Children expressed a positive attitude toward their willingness to taste new foods in a variety of settings. In general, children perceived themselves and their parent to be healthy eaters. When offered new fruits and vegetables, children were more willing to taste the fruits than vegetables. Vegetables were more positively received and eaten when offered with dip.