Short communication Stability and change in snack food likes and dislikes from 5 to 11 years § Brandi Y. Rollins a,b, *, Eric Loken b , Leann L. Birch a a Center for Childhood Obesity Research, The Pennsylvania State University, 129 Noll Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, United States b Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 211 Henderson South, University Park, PA 16802, United States Introduction Children’s predispositions for sweet and salty tastes (Desor, Maller, & Andrews, 1975; Nisbett & Gurwitz, 1970; Tatzer, Schubert, Timischl, & Simbruner, 1985), and repeated experience with these tastes conjointly influence the development of food likes and dislikes (Birch, 1999). This may be particularly true for palatable snack foods. For example, children’s predispositions for sweet and salty tastes may promote the liking of palatable snack foods that taste sweet and/or salty and increase the likelihood that these foods will continue to be liked over time. In addition, repeated exposure can increase the liking of foods (Sullivan & Birch, 1994; Wardle et al., 2003), and the association of food cues with other contextual or post-ingestive cues can either increase or decrease liking for palatable snack foods (Birch, Birch, Marlin, & Kramer, 1982; Birch, McPhee, Steinberg, & Sullivan, 1990). For instance, preschool children who were repeatedly exposed to high- and low-calorie versions of two novel sweetened drinks, which differed in the amount of carbohydrate, showed increased liking for the high- calorie versions, but not for the low-calorie versions (Birch et al., 1990). In addition, novel snack foods may quickly become liked when they are paired with positive contexts such as birthday parties and positive adult attention (Birch, Zimmerman, & Hind, 1980). However, to date, there is limited empirical evidence for the stability and change in palatable snack foods during childhood. There is some evidence for the stability and change in children’s likes and dislikes of non-snack foods during childhood. Nicklaus, Boggio, Chabanet, & Issanchou (2004) found that children’s likes and dislikes for vegetables correlated weakly from childhood into adolescence, and increased in overall liking during this time period. In other words, children maintained their relative rank in liking of vegetables, despite an overall increase in liking of vegetables for the total sample. In addition, another study reported high stability in children’s likes and dislikes of 196 foods ranging from carbonated soda to spinach from age 4 to 8, with very little change during this period (Skinner, Carruth, Wendy, & Ziegler, 2002). The aim of the current study was to contribute to this literature by examining both the stability and the change in snack food likes and dislikes from age 5 to 11 in a longitudinal study. Methods Participants were from central Pennsylvania and part of a longitudinal study on the health and development of young girls. At entry into the study, participants included 197 5-year-old girls (mean age 5.4 Æ 0.4) and their parents. The girls were reassessed every 2 years (ages 7, 9, and 11). The final assessment included 177 families. Eligibility criteria for girls’ participation at the time of recruitment included living with two biological parents, absence of severe food allergies or chronic medical problems affecting food Appetite 55 (2010) 371–373 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 30 May 2009 Received in revised form 1 June 2010 Accepted 17 June 2010 Keywords: Liking Snack foods Tracking Longitudinal study Childhood Adolescence ABSTRACT Research on the development of snack food likes and dislikes from childhood to adolescence is limited. We investigated both the stability and the change in liking (i.e., ‘‘like’’, ‘‘neither like nor dislike’’, ‘‘dislike’’) and rank-order liking (i.e., liking one food more than others; e.g., ‘‘I like chocolate more than cookies’’) of snack foods from 5 to 11 years in non-Hispanic white girls. Liking of 10 palatable snack foods was assessed biennially. Girls’ liking and rank-order liking of snack foods were modestly stable from age 5 to 11, and there was a tendency for initially disliked foods to become more liked. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. § Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants M01 RR10732 and HD32973, and the Bunton Waller Fellowship Award and Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award grant 1 F31 HL092721-01. We thank Michele Marini for her excellent technical assistance, and Lee Carpenter, Editor at the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development, at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: byr104@psu.edu (B.Y. Rollins). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet 0195-6663/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2010.06.012