DEVELOPMENT IN THE FOOD DOMAIN

Food selection occupies a major portion of the time of humans and yet is virtually ignored in the developmental literature. There are some problems of general interest in developmental psychology that can be successfully studied in the food domain. Some of these are discussed in this article: internalization (the development of food likes and dislikes), category formation (e.g., establishment of the edible/inedible distinction), the development of cognitive-affective linkages (disgust and contagion), transgenerational communication of preferences, and the transition to food independence at weaning.