Snack consumption has been associated with increased energy intakes and weight gain(Reference Forslund, Torgerson and Sjöström1). Research suggests that energy-dense snack foods may be associated with different taste profiles(Reference Maffeis, Grezzani and Perrone2). Taste is one of the major drivers of food choice, and is a particularly important factor in children's food choice(Reference Feeney, O'Brien and Scannell3). Definitions of a snack vary, generally a snack refers to a food which is consumed outside the traditional three main meals(Reference Hartmann, Siegrist and Van Der Horst4); and is not considered a substitution for a main meal(Reference Johnson and Anderson5). The aim of this study was to identify the tastes in snack foods which are associated with energy intake, and obesity in Irish children, and whether obesity may be related to differences in the taste of snack intakes.
An existing database, the Tastebuddies study, was used here. The population sample consisted of a total of 366 school children 7 to 13 years old (205 girls; mean age 10·3 years, and 161 boys; mean age 10·5 years) from a diverse range of schools and socioeconomic backgrounds. Mean daily intakes were calculated for snack consumption, and snack foods were categorised into ‘Umami’, ‘Salty’ and ‘Sweet’ taste profiles. For the purpose of this study, beverages were not considered as snacks. Univariate linear models and chi-squared analysis were used to test for associations between snack intake and body weight status using SPSS for Mac (IBM).
Sweet snacks were the most highly consumed (194·2 g, 106·5kcal) snack food group overall, compared to umami (25·3 g, 19·1kcal) and salty snack foods (18·6 g, 16·9kcal). There was no significant difference between snack consumption (weight in grams or energy in kilocalories) and the children's weight status for any of the three taste categories.
In Ireland, school children generally have a greater consumption of sweet snacks compared to salty or umami snacks. There was no difference in the type of snack foods consumed between overweight/obese and the normal weight children, only in the volume of snacks consumed. This suggests that in this cohort of Irish children, no particular snack taste profile was associated with greater energy intake.
1Weight in grams, 2Weight Status (normal weight children (n = 236) and overweight/obese children (n = 121)), 3T-Statistic (Degrees of freedom = 355), 4Pvalue significant if P < 0·05, 5Energy in kilocalories
