Do children who exhibit food selectivity prefer to save the best (bite) for last?
Most food-selective kids want their favorite bite first, not last.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Borrero et al. (2022) asked four food-selective kids to pick the order they ate four bites.
Each bite had a different food the child liked or disliked.
The team watched who saved the favorite bite for last.
What they found
Three kids wanted the best bite first. Only one waited for last.
The old saying 'save the best for last' did not fit most food-selective children.
How this fits with other research
Castillo et al. (2022) ran the same test with adults who have IDD. They also saw just one in four save the best for last.
Villafañ et al. (2023) tried pictures instead of real bites. Their pictorial test still predicted what kids would eat.
Together these papers show the 'last is least' rule is rare across ages and methods.
Why it matters
Stop planning meals on the idea that kids will wait for the favorite bite. Put the most liked food first to keep them at the table. If you run a preference test, expect the first pick to be the true favorite.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractPreference for patterns of outcomes that improve over time is termed negative time preference, in economics. In lay terms, this concept equates to “saving the best for last.” Generally, adults tend to prefer to postpone their more preferred outcomes when options are presented as a sequence of events. Event sequencing seems particularly relevant for children who exhibit food refusal or selectivity. Preference for the sequencing of bites when an array involved preferred and relatively non‐preferred foods was evaluated. Participants experienced pre‐programed bite sequences that improved, worsened, or remained fixed across trials, and we assessed participants' preference for each of the bite sequences. Three of the four participants preferred bite sequences that began with a highly preferred food and either worsened or remained fixed over time, whereas one participant preferred the improving sequence of bite presentation, or in other words, one participant preferred to “save the best for last.”
Behavioral Interventions, 2022 · doi:10.1002/bin.1845