A cross-cultural analysis of children's vegetable preferences

The successful promotion of vegetable consumption by children requires a deep understanding of children's vegetable preferences as well as the factors shaping them throughout childhood. This study analyzed children vegetable liking in four different age ranges (5-6, 7-8, 9-10 and 11-12 years old) in Chile, China and the United States. Three hundred and eighty-four children completed this study. All participants tasted and rated 14 different vegetables for liking and described the samples using Check-All-That-Apply (CATA). We found significant differences in degree of overall liking among children from the three countries (p < 0.001). Specifically, children in China gave higher overall liking scores than children in the US, and in the US higher than in Chile. Child age and gender did not influence children's vegetable overall liking across the three countries. Across all countries and age groups, liking of taste and texture were the best predictors of children overall liking. The penalty analysis of CATA selections by children showed that the mean impact of the attributes that children used to describe the samples on their liking varied among countries, with the descriptors having the least impact on liking for Chinese children.