Some children are sometimes described as “difficult” with food, because they only eat certain foods or protest in the face of the idea of tasting new ones. But is this behavior innate or acquired? This is the question that a team of scientists led by researcher Zeynep Nas, from the University of London, arose. According to the results of this study, reported by the Guardian, it is genetics that would mainly explain these behaviors.
The research team became interested in the eating habits of toddlers to adolescents. She discovered that in average, the propensity to be a “difficult” child did not, or little, evolved between the ages of 16 months and 13 years. However, there would be a peak form at 7 years old, often followed by a slight decline.
The researchers then showed that the dominant factor in the propensity to be “difficult” was DNA: genetic variations within the population explained 60% of differences in behavior in the face of food in children of 16 months. A percentage that climbed up to 74% or more for children aged 3 to 13.
Other factors influence so -called “difficult” behaviors, but in a less important proportion. This is particularly the case in the environment in which children live: researchers indicate, for example, that sitting to eat with family and the types of foods consumed by people around them can influence children’s eating behaviors.
Food preferences genetics
The researchers also became interested in the data of the English study “Gemini”, for which parents of twins had informed the eating habits of their children at the age of 16 months, 3 years, 5 years, 7 and 13 years. Among these children, some were monozygous twins, which means that they share 100% of their DNA. Others were dizygotic twins: they only share 50% of common genes.
By analyzing this data, the researchers realized that the apparent difficulty for children to eat everything was often more similar in monozygous twins than in dizygotic twins, thus confirming the weight of genetics in the appearance of this type of behavior.
In addition, in 2022, Doctor Nicola Pirastu, of the Italian Research Institute Human Technopole, had conducted a study on genetics of food preferences. This suggests that genes affecting taste and smell receptors are less important than brain variations that affect the way people react to the different flavors.
“Although flavor is the first factor that determines food choices, genetic differences are more likely to determine how the brain reacts to these flavors”explains Nicola Piratsu. According to him, a better understanding of the genetic mechanisms that influence food choices could open the way to the creation of more attractive modified healthy foods, even to the creation of drugs that would modify our preferences.
