Child food neophobia, i.e., rejection or avoidance of novel foods in young age, is a prevalent problem that affects quality of children’s diet and impedes the development of healthy food preferences. Olfaction is an obvious candidate for a food neophobia correlate as it largely affects food perception and enjoyment. However, existing studies rarely examine the association between olfaction and food neophobia in children and they are often limited to questionnaires and or very simple measures. Here, we tested whether food neophobia in children is predicted by various aspects of olfactory sensitivity and we additionally examined the contribution of odor awareness and a range of demographic factors to this problem. A group of 238 children aged between 3 and 9 (M=7.08, SD=1.85; 52,9% girls) and their primary caregivers took part in an assessment of food neophobia, odor awareness, odor pleasantness perception, olfactory thresholds for detection of two odors (unfamiliar food- and non-food odors), as well as odor identification skills. A multiple regression model including food neophobia, all olfactory sensitivity measures and other variables of interest indicated a significant predictive power of threshold for unfamiliar non-food odor detection and odor identification. Olfactory sensitivity seems to significantly contribute to food neophobia, regardless of a range of demographic and psychological factors.

This research was funded by National Science Centre (Poland) research grant SONATA #2020/39/D/HS6/01644 to AS.