Julia Robinson

Honors in Psychology

Major: Psychology

Supervisor: Simone Nguyen, Psychology

An Examination of Children and Adult’s Beliefs about the Health and Taste of Various Foods within the Basic Food Groups

This study was done to examine the relationship between people's evaluations of the health and taste of foods. The prediction was that both children and adults would display the belief that there is an inverse relationship between the health and taste of food. This means that they would rate healthy foods as less tasty and unhealthy foods as more tasty. The results support the predictions for specific age and food groups but not for all the individual foods. It was found that 4-year-olds and the 6-year-olds rate health differently from the adults and all ages rate taste the same. In addition, adults and 6-year-olds rated food groups similarly in that they rated sugars, grains, and fats as less healthy than yummy, and vegetables and fruits as more healthy than yummy. They both also viewed dairy and meat as equally healthy and yummy. In contrast, the 4-year-olds viewed the foods in the vegetable and meat categories as more healthy than yummy and the foods in the dairy and sugar categories as less healthy than yummy. The fat category showed a trend towards significance that was similar to the dairy and sugar in that, it was more frequently viewed as less healthy than yummy. These findings may have many practical applications in that they provide insight into the way in which we classify foods and how those classifications may affect our individual preferences.