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2nd Wageningen Child Eating Behaviour Symposium!
On December 20th 2023 the Sensory Science and Eating behaviour group hosted the 2nd Wageningen Child Eating Behaviour Symposium and invited researchers working in this area to share the latest development in child eating behaviour and health research. The seminar was well visited with 60 participants throughout the day joining live on Wageningen Campus and over 90 participants joining online from all over Europe.
The Symposium kicked-off with a fantastic Key-Note by Assistant Professor Keri McCrickerd from the department of pediatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. She shared her experiences and insights in the development and implementation of the appetite tool box in Singapore to improve internal awareness or sensitivity of children in terms of feelings of hunger and fullness. The first session continued with talks about other innovative approaches to understand child eating behaviour, such as the FoodPAD (Zoë van der Heijden (PhD Student), WUR), Methods to study child appetite dynamics (Catoo Krale (PhD Student), WUR), AI-based appetite recognition of pre-term infants in the NICU (Ass. Prof. Marlou Lasschuijt, WUR), methods to improve treatment outcomes of children with severe malnutrition (dr. Alemayehu Tuklu-Toni (PhD student), WUR) and dry spots as a method to measure human milk composition (Assistant Prof. Elske Brouwer Brolsma and Inga Petersohn (PhD student), WUR) and the final talk of the morning was by Lotte Pater (PhD student, WUR) who spoke about children’s role in the household protein transition using qualitative approaches such as unboxing.
The afternoon session started with a very interesting Key-Note by Prof. Remco Havermans who gave a nice overview of all different factors that affect child eating behaviour in healthy and clinical groups. The keynote was followed by talks all covering how sensory experiences can be used to shape healthy eating behaviour in children. Dr. Beyza Ustun-Elayan (Post-Doc, WUR) explained how in utero flavour experiences of infants can be provoked and measured and how they may translate to flavour experiences in the first month post-partum. Followed by talks about repeated exposure to sweet-taste (Carine Mueller, PhD student WUR) and Miffy-based color intervention to improve fruit and vegetable intake of toddlers (Femke de Gooijer, PhD student WUR).
Late Afternoon the last key-note of the day was given by Prof. Ellen van Kleef who gave an impressive overview of digital marketing exposure in adolescents and the impact it has on food choice. The key-note was followed by Anouk Mesch (PHD student WUR) who gave a talk on secondary school context and how it can be used to stimulate adolescents to adopt healthier and more sustainable diets. Dr. Victoire de Wild, (senior lecturer, WUR) presented her findings on translating scientific-based-principles to practice “ veggies and more”. Followed by an overview of Nutrition education and food innovation for children by Ilse van Lier (PhD student Maastricht university, Campus Venlo). The last speaker of the day Dr. Gertrude Zeinstra spoke about school based interventions to support healthy and sustainable eating habits. The session ended with a discussion on whether or not schools should provide lunch meals- the answer? Definitely!
We would like to thank all the speakers and the audience for the wonderful scientific day on child eating behaviour! Hope to see you back for the 3rd Wageningen Child Eating Behaviour Symposium later this year.
The 2nd Child eating behaviour symposium was organized by the Sensory Science and Eating Behaviour group, Wageningen university – Prof. Ciarán Forde, Dr. Beyza Ustun-Elayan, Assistant Prof. Marlou Lasschuijt, Dr. Victoire de Wild, Sjanneke Hulshof
You can find the full program here.
The 3rd CEBS symposium, will be in December 2024!
