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HabEat – Determining food preferences during childhood
Launched on 9-10 March 2010 in Dijon, the European HabEat project, coordinated by Sylvie Issanchou from the INRA Research Centre in Dijon, aims to better understand the key periods and mechanisms in the development of food preferences in children from birth until the age of five years. This project, which is funded in the context of the European FP7 (2007-2013), involves eleven partners, three of which are French. The results should ultimately give rise to the dissemination of guidelines on dietary practices for infants and young children.
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Although changes in food preferences and habits can occur after the end of childhood, the first two years of life are of crucial importance.
Two different approaches: epidemiological and experimental
The collaborative HabEat project aims to better understand the factors determining the development of dietary habits using two different approaches: epidemiological on the one hand, and experimental on the other. This ambitious project has been built around ten European research teams with complementary skills, to which should be added INRA Transfert SA which is responsible for its administrative, logistical and financial management. This group of teams is particularly interesting because it associates countries from northern and southern Europe with different dietary habits and, in particular, different dietary diversification strategies. As for the epidemiological studies, the teams involved in HabEat will be working on existing data from four European cohorts: ALSPAC for the UK, EDEN for France, Generation XXI for Portugal and the Greek sub-cohort of Europrevall. These data will be exploited using the same analytical tools in order to answer common questions that focus in particular on the diversity of the dietary repertoire and the acceptance of vegetables at different ages.
Experimental work will be divided into two sections. The first, focused principally on key learning mechanisms, will mainly concern infants between the ages of six months and three years. Different learning mechanisms that have already been well described in the scientific literature but not systematically explored in a comparable manner at different ages, will be tested. The second section will study new strategies in order to determine whether it is possible, between the ages of three and five years, to overcome poor dietary habits that have previously developed.
Guidelines for professionals
At the horizon of 2013-2014, the results of the HabEat project should give rise to guidelines on parental practices for feeding infants and children. These recommendations will be circulated to early childhood professionals, paediatricians, political decision-makers in charge of defining nutritional policies and also to the baby-food industry which is expressing increasing demands for this type of information.
HabEat is financed by the European Commission in the context of the FP7 for a duration of 4 years under contract n° FP7-245012. It is the first contract of this type to receive the label of the Vitagora® competitiveness cluster.
INRA's subsidiary, INRA Transfert SA, is responsible for its administrative, logistical and financial management.
HabEat partners:
- INRA, INSERM, INRA Transfert SA (France),
- WUR with the Centre of Innovative Consumer Studies of Food & Biobased Research and Wageningen Universiteit (The Netherlands),
- University of Leeds, University College London, University of Bristol (Great Britain),
- Kobenhavns Universitet (Denmark),
- Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto (Portugal),
- Harokopio University (Greece).
More information on the HabEat site: http://www.habeat.eu/ |
Scientific contact:
Sylvie Issanchou
UMR CSGA - Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation
17 rue Sully . BP 86510. 21065 DIJON (France)
Tel: +33(0)3 80 69 30 76
sylvie.issanchou@dijon.inra.fr
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Written by :
Communications Department
Label for the news :
Article
Date for the news :
2011.03.08
Date of creation : 02/11/2010
Date of last update : 05/11/2010
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