Mothers' diet influence on food acceptance during weaning

: a systematic review

Abstract

First year of life infants start defining their food preferences and eating behaviors, which willtrack into adulthood influencing dietary habits later in life. Eating behaviors evolve andchange from an exclusive milk diet through a complementary feeding until familiar diet.Weaning starts between 4 and 6 months and it’s the period when caregivers start introducingsolid foods. There are several and complex factors influencing initial responses to theintroduction of new foods. As some flavors may pass through amniotic liquid and breast milkit was hypothesized that mothers’ diet could affect food acceptance during weaning, throughflavor learning. Mothers may also influence some children through modelling. And so,mothers’ eating habits may influence food acceptance during weaning. However, there arestill few studies focusing in role of mothers’ diet as a predictor of food acceptance duringweaning and so further researches are needed to better understand the role of mothers’ diet.

Date of Award	23 Jul 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Elisabete Pinto (Supervisor)