If you feel like your six-year-old has suddenly gotten extra fussy about the texture of their dinner, don’t worry. It will pass. A new study demonstrates that at the age of six, children prefer to avoid crunch in their peanut butter, berries in jam and pieces of fruit in yogurt.

I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jtxs.12848

From the linked article:

If you feel like your six-year-old has suddenly gotten extra fussy about the texture of their dinner, don’t worry. It will pass. A new study from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Food Science demonstrates that at the age of six, children prefer to avoid crunch in their peanut butter, berries in jam and pieces of fruit in yogurt,

In the study, the researchers asked 485 children between the ages of five and twelve to choose between six different foods with and without lumps, seeds and pieces of fruit in them. The foods were bread, orange juice, peanut butter, strawberry jam, yogurt and tomato soup. The researchers showed children drawings of these foods both with and without lumps, and then asked them to choose between them.

In 76 percent of the instances, six-year-olds opted for foods without lumps, the highest preference rate observed across the age groups.

According to Ching Yue Chow, there may be an explanation for why children’s fear of complex texture in food peaks around the age of six.

“Food neophobia is often described as the reluctance to eat new or unfamiliar foods. It is thought to be a protective function to prevent children from eating potentially poisonous foods or other dangerous things when they start to become more independent. Studies have reported that food neophobia starts from a low baseline at weaning. It increases sharply as a child becomes more mobile and independent, reaching a peak at around 6 or 7 years old.

And according to the researcher, the “anti-chunk phase” that 6-year-olds have, you have to accept as a parent, although it can be frustrating when the kids don’t want to eat the food they’re served. But that can easily change once they’re past the critical age of six. You just have to keep trying – often up to 15 times, the recommendation goes:

“A lot of research on children and foods shows that repeated exposures to new dishes have a positive effect on whether they’ll bother eating them. Specifically, it is about giving children the opportunity to taste new food while there is something on the plate that they already know. Often they need to be presented with the new dish 8-15 times before they develop preference for it, but persistence pays off,” explains Ching Yue Chow.