Increasing variety of foods consumed by blending nonpreferred foods into preferred foods.
Gradually blending nonpreferred foods into favorites can expand a picky eater’s diet to 16 items without force.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two children with feeding disorders ate only one or two foods. The team mixed tiny bits of new foods into the kids’ favorites. They raised the mix 10–20% each step. A reversal design showed the blending, not chance, caused change.
No escape extinction was used. Kids could say no; the food just tasted more like what they already liked.
What they found
Both children ended up eating all 16 target foods, even when the foods were no longer blended. Acceptance rose from 1–2 items to 16. Gains held weeks later.
How this fits with other research
King et al. (2020) later looked at ten small blending studies and warned the evidence is still thin. Their caution keeps the field honest; DeRoma et al. (2004) is one of those ten.
Davis et al. (2023) took the same no-force idea into a preschool classroom. They gave a preferred bite right after a non-preferred bite. Sequential bites worked better than mixing foods on the same spoon, showing the principle extends beyond the kitchen.
Laugeson et al. (2014) used syringe-to-spoon fading for a child who clamped his mouth shut. Both studies avoid escape extinction, but one fades utensils, the other fades food ratios — cousin procedures for different roadblocks.
Why it matters
You can widen a child’s diet without holding bites in. Start with one part new food to nine parts favorite. Raise the ratio every few days. Track acceptance; if it drops, back up one step. The method is gentle, parent-friendly, and fits school lunch trays as well as home plates. Try it before moving to more intrusive tactics.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
UNLABELLED: A treatment with differential or noncontingent reinforcement and nonremoval of the spoon increased the acceptance of one or two of 16 foods for 2 participants with severe food refusal. These differential levels of acceptance were demonstrated empirically in an ABAB design in which A was the presentation of the accepted (preferred) foods and B was the presentation of foods the participants refused (nonpreferred foods). Subsequently, we implemented a blending treatment that consisted of mixing (blending) nonpreferred foods into preferred foods in various ratios (e.g., 10% nonpreferred/90% preferred, 20% nonpreferred/80% preferred). We then presented nonpreferred foods that had been exposed to blending to determine if consumption of nonpreferred foods would increase following the blending treatment. We also conducted periodic reversals in which we presented nonpreferred foods that had not been exposed to the blending treatment. Following initial implementation of the blending treatment, consumption was high for nonpreferred foods that had been blended and low for nonpreferred foods that had not been blended. Consumption increased for all foods (i.e., foods that had been exposed to blending and foods that had not been exposed to blending) after seven or eight foods had been exposed to the blending treatment. Thus, the variety of foods consumed by the participants increased from one or two to 16. These results are discussed in terms of stimulus fading, conditioned food preferences, and escape extinction. DESCRIPTORS: conditioned food preferences, food refusal, negative reinforcement, stimulus fading
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2004 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2004.37-159