Babies' reactions to unfamiliar foods

Babies and toddlers who are eating solid foods, and are at least 6 months old and no older than 23 months old. Parents must be able to communicate in English with the research team.

This study will take place on two video calls, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time for the first session. At the end of that session, we will schedule a follow-up session for about 1 week later.

We will ask you to select unfamiliar foods and offer them to your child in two different videoconference appointments (a different unfamiliar food in each session). Before the first appointment, we will ask you to fill out an online permission form and complete questionnaires. In the first appointment, just do what you would do normally if we were not interacting with you. In the second appointment, we will give you some instructions and see how you and your child respond.

You are welcome to pick any foods that are unfamiliar to your child that you feel comfortable offering. We just ask that you select one food to start the appointment and that you choose foods so that they are both spoon-fed or both finger-fed. For example, if you spoon-fed your child during the first appointment, we ask that you also spoon-feed for the second appointment.

In this study, we are interested in learning more about babies’ and toddlers’ reactions to unfamiliar foods (new foods they have not tasted before). Different children react differently to new foods and we would like to learn more about the factors that influence eating behavior in the first two years. This study may increase our understanding of the development of eating and food preferences early in life. We hope that this benefits the scientific community and will help us develop recommendations and best practices for parents as they introduce new foods to their babies and toddlers.

30 minutes per session (2 sessions)

You will receive a $5 Amazon gift card after Appointment 1 and $10 in Amazon gift cards after Appointment 2. Gift card codes will be emailed within one week of each appointment. At this time, we only have U.S. Amazon gift cards available.