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HAVING trouble persuading your child to eat broccoli or spinach? You may have only yourself to blame.


Neophobia - or the fear of new foods - is mostly in the genes, according to new research.
“Children could actually blame their mothers for this,” said Dr Jane Wardle, director of the Health Behaviour Unit at University College London, one of the study’s authors.

Dr Wardle and colleagues asked the parents of 5,390 pairs of identical and non-identical twins to complete a questionnaire on the willingness of their children to try new foods.

Identical twins, who share all genes, were much more likely to respond the same way to new foods than non-identical twins, who, like other siblings, only share about half their genes.

Researchers concluded that genetics played a greater role in determining eating preferences than environment.

Dr Wardle said food preferences appeared “as inheritable a characteristic as height”.

Neophobia typically kicks in at age two or three. While most grow out of the food fussiness by five, not all do.

“Your child’s genetic make-up is going to influence to a large extent how willing he or she is to eat new foods,” said Dr Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. The study is published in this month’s American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1351882007

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