Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Dec 11;64(1):42.
doi: 10.1007/s00394-024-03538-0.

Association of ability to rank sweet and fat taste intensities with sweet and fat food propensity ratios of children, adolescents and adults: the I.Family study

Hannah Jilani  1 , Timm Intemann  2 , Gabriele Eiben  3 , Fabio Lauria  4 , Lauren Lissner  5 , Nathalie Michels  6 , Dénes Molnár  7 , Luis A Moreno  8 , Valeria Pala  9 , Michael Tornaritis  10 , Toomas Veidebaum  11 , Wolfgang Ahrens #  2 , Antje Hebestreit #  12 ; the I.Family consortium
Affiliations

Association of ability to rank sweet and fat taste intensities with sweet and fat food propensity ratios of children, adolescents and adults: the I.Family study

Hannah Jilani et al. Eur J Nutr. .

Abstract

Purpose: It is assumed that sensory taste perception shapes food choices and impacts dietary intake. However, this has rarely been studied in free living subjects of different age-groups with standardised methods. The present study investigated the association of the ability to rank sweet and fat taste intensities with consumption frequency of sweet and fatty foods in children, adolescents and adults from eight European countries.

Methods: In total, 461 children, 421 adolescents and 612 adults from the IDEFICS/I.Family cohort participated in sensory sweet and fat intensity rating tests. Sweet and fatty food consumption frequencies were assessed using a food frequency questionnaire. The association between the ability to rank sweet and fat intensity with sweet and fatty food consumption frequencies was estimated using linear mixed regression models adjusting for weight status, country, sex, age and family affiliation.

Results: Across all age groups, the largest proportion of participants had medium sweet and fat taste intensity ranking abilities. The next largest proportion had low sweet and fat taste intensity rating abilities, while the smallest proportion had high intensity rating abilities to sweet and fat taste. A negative association of sweet and fat taste intensity ranking ability with sweet and fatty food consumption frequencies was found for children. In adolescents, the association was positive. In adults, there was no association.

Conclusion: It seems that the association of taste intensity ratings with food consumption frequencies during adolescence differs from the associations in children and adults. This could be due to hormonal changes during puberty, growth and maturation. Thus, further research focussing on maturation processes in association with taste perception during adolescence may be required.

Keywords: Food consumption; Sweet and fatty taste; Taste intensity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Ethics approval and consent to participate : Each study centre obtained ethical approval from the local institutional review board; Belgium: Ethics Committee of the Gent University Hospital, 15/10/2007, ref: No. EC UZG 2007/243 and 19/02/2013, No. B670201316342, Cyprus: Cyprus National Bioethics Committee, 12/07/2007, ref: No. EEBK/EM/2007/16 and 21/Feb/2013, No. EEBK/ETI/2012/33, Estonia: Tallinn Medical Research Ethics Committee (TMREC), 14/06/2007, ref: No. 1093 and 17/January 2013, No. 128, Germany: Ethic Commission of the University of Bremen, 16/01/2007 and 11/12/2012, Hungary: Medical Research Council, 21/Jun/2007, ref: 22-156/2007-1018EKU and 18/12/2012, 4536/2013/EKU, Italy: Ethics Committee of the Local Health Authority (ASL) in Avellino, 19/06/2007, ref: No. 2/CE and 18/Sep/2012, No. 12/12, Spain: Ethics Committee for Clinical Research of Aragon (CEICA), 20/06/2007, ref:No. PI07/13 and 13/Feb/2013, No. PI13/0012, Sweden: Regional Ethics Research Board in Gothenburg, 30/07/2007, ref: No. 264-07 and 10/Jan/2013, No. 927-12. The ISRCTN reference is: ISRCTN62310987. Besides the oral information given, all participants above 12 years gave a written consent and parents gave a written consent on behalf of their children below 12 years in addition to the oral consent of their children.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. WHO Regional Office for Europe (2022) WHO European Regional Obesity Report 2022.
    1. Pala V et al (2013) Dietary patterns and longitudinal change in body mass in European children: a follow-up study on the IDEFICS multicenter cohort. Eur J Clin Nutr 67(10):1042–1049 - PubMed
    1. Hebestreit A et al (2014) Dietary energy density in young children across Europe. Int J Obes (Lond) 38(Suppl 2):S124–S134 - PubMed
    1. Herforth A et al (2019) A Global Review of Food-based Dietary guidelines. Adv Nutr 10(4):590–605 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Piernas C, Popkin BM (2011) Food portion patterns and trends among U.S. children and the relationship to total eating occasion size, 1977–2006. J Nutr 141(6):1159–1164 - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources