THE ACQUIRING FOOD PREFERENCES: THE CASE OF SWEET TASTE

Contrary to other tastes (bitter, sour, salty), sweet taste is liked by newborns. This attraction is applied in paediatrics, since sweet solutions reduce crying in infants undergoing painful procedures. The innate sweet taste preference somehow fades in early childhood but is still strong in childhood and teenage, then decreases in adulthood. As soon as infancy, repeated exposures to sweet foods reinforce children's preferences. The affective context of sweet food consumption might modulate the exposure effect : parental practices aiming either at controlling sweet food intake, or at offering them as a reward for a 'good' behaviour reinforce preferences. In other respect, liking of sweet taste might vary according to genetic background, but has not been related to any known protein yet. The ubiquitous presence of sweet foods in our societies might lead to an evolution in the attraction their trigger, as well as in human genome.