Pediatric Food Preferences and Eating Behaviors reviews scientific works that investigate why children eat the way they do and whether eating behaviors are modifiable. The book begins with an introduction and historical perspective, and then delves into the development of flavor preferences, the role of repeated exposure and other types of learning, the effects of modeling eating behavior, picky eating, food neophobia, and food selectivity. Other sections discuss appetite regulation, the role of reward pathways, genetic contributions to eating behaviors, environmental influences, cognitive aspects, the development of loss of control eating, and food cognitions and nutrition knowledge.

Written by leading researchers in the field, each chapter presents basic concepts and definitions, methodological issues pertaining to measurement, and the current state of scientific knowledge as well as directions for future research.

• Delivers an up-to-date synthesis of the research evidence addressing the development of children’s eating behaviors, from birth to age 18 years
• Provides an in-depth synthesis of the basic eating behaviors that contribute to consumption patterns
• Translates the complex and sometimes conflicting research in this area to clinical and public health practice
• Concludes each chapter with practical implications for practice
• Presents the limits of current knowledge and the next steps in scientific inquiry