The Development of Appetite: Tracking and Age-Related Differences in Appetitive Traits in Childhood

Appetitive traits are associated with body weight. Increased understanding of how appetitive traits evolve from early life could advance research on obesity risk and inform intervention development. We report on tracking and age-related differences in appetitive traits in childhood within the RESONANCE cohort. Parents of RESONANCE children aged 6.02 ± 2.99 years completed the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ). Pearson correlations of appetitive traits and age were tested for all participants contributing at least one observation, using each participant's first observation (N = 335). Children's first and second observations of the CEBQ (n = 127) were used to test tracking (paired correlations) and age-related differences (paired t-tests) within individuals. CEBQ correlations with age suggested that satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, emotional undereating, and desire to drink decreased with age (r = -0.111 to r = -0.269, all p < 0.05), while emotional overeating increased with age (r = 0.207, p < 0.001). Food fussiness demonstrated a quadratic relationship with age. Paired t-tests further supported an increase in emotional overeating with age (M: 1.55 vs. 1.69, p = 0.005). All CEBQ subscales demonstrated moderate to high tracking (r = 0.533 to r = 0.760, p < 0.001). Our initial findings within the RESONANCE cohort suggest that food avoidant traits are negatively related with age, while emotional overeating increases with age, and that appetitive traits track through childhood.