April 3, 2025
Over the years in my 20+ years of practicing dentistry and working with children and adults, I see a trend where more and more children are having sensory and eating habit issues. Given this observation, an article “Early Influences on Development of Sensory Perception and Eating Habits” published in Advances in Nutrition, an international review journal, provides some interesting findings that may be worth your consideration.
Here are some key findings based on the article on the importance of early introduction to a variety of healthy food choices:
Infancy and early childhood are important periods for the development of food choices and eating preferences into adult life, influencing weight gain, body composition, and metabolism and ultimately affecting the balance between health and disease.
Food preference can be influenced by early direct contact with flavors, textures, and aromas, as well as by environmental adversities during early development. Evidence suggests that exposure to intrauterine growth restriction is associated with increased preferences for highly palatable foods, such as those rich in carbohydrates and fats, over the life course.
Early flavor experiences, whether from amniotic fluid or human milk, may also shape the development of food preferences. Some researchers indicate that there may be a sensitive period in the first year of life when children are more receptive to new food flavors and textures, suggesting that delaying the introduction of solid foods may lead to feeding difficulties in later childhood. Children are more likely to accept textures that they are able to manipulate, and early exposure to a range of textures facilitates the acceptance of foods of various textures later on.
Improving dietary habits during gestation (fetal) and postnatal periods is of critical importance for the establishment of positive eating habits and healthy growth in infants and should be an important focus of primary prevention efforts.
Several studies have shown that weight gain during infancy may have long-term consequences on health. Rapid growth that follows early growth retardation has been associated with increased risk of overweight and obesity in children, and differences in weight gain during early infancy are at least partly explained by means of infant feeding. Therefore, it is of primary importance to develop effective evidence-based strategies to promote the development of healthy eating styles.
Infant growth must be carefully monitored, both as a prevention of stunting as per the original intent of the growth chart, but also for tracking rapid and excessive growth. Irregular mastication or chewing difficulties must be identified and treated to avoid potential long-term detrimental effects. Providing support and counseling about stimulating healthy food choices to families raising young children is inevitably beneficial to everyone, but may be more so to individuals during sensitive periods of their lives (e.g., pregnancy, lactation, infancy, adolescence).
In adolescents, individuals with overweight showed more changes in orofacial myofunctional aspects than normal-weight ones, and females reported peeling and cutting fruit (apples) in small pieces to better chew them. In the elderly population, many studies have suggested that weaknesses of the masticatory muscles and decreased chewing efficiency due dental problems can have a negative impact on food intake, resulting in avoidance of foods that are difficult to chew, such as meat, fruits, and vegetables.
Future studies are needed to clarify early factors in orofacial development that may impact the acceptance of foods with different textures.
