Influence of taste sensitivity in diet choices and obesity among children.

Introduction: The prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity in Portugal is about 35% (Rito et al., 2012). Lifestyle and dietary habits are important risk factors for weight gain. Food choice and acceptance greatly relies on food perception. The evaluation of taste sensitivity in children and its relation to dietary choices and Body Mass Index (BMI) will be important in a context of obesity prevention. Nonetheless, methodologies for accessing taste sensitivity in children needs to be optimized and adjusted and in Portugal there is not an established protocol. Objectives: To test and optimize a protocol for sweet and bitter taste sensitivity, in Portuguese children, adapted from a protocol already used in German children (Knof et al., 2011). Methods: 20 children, 12 boys and 8 girls, with ages between 8 and 10 years old, were presented with 5 concentrations of sweet (3 – 16 g/L sucrose) and 5 concentrations of bitter taste solutions (0,05 – 0,25 g/L caffeine) and asked for selected the ones perceived as different from water. Results: Test conditions, both the type of presentation and time of tests, resulted for children with the ages tested. For sweet taste, the number and range of concentrations from test solutions appeared to be adequate in the age group between 8 and 10 years. For bitter taste in 80% of children the answers were not consensual with the range of concentrations. Conclusions: The results from the present work suggest that the concentrations used for access bitter taste sensitivity in children from other countries are not sensed by Portuguese children, showing the importance of adjusting adequate concentrations according to sociocultural habits. This may be possible being due to the complex pathway for bitter taste transduction