• aggression
• development
• gene–environment interaction
• neural circuits
• parenting
• plasticity
• systems neuroscience

• consumer behavior
• consumer perception
• dairy products
• food choice
• meat products
• plant-based

• dietary sugars
• early intervention
• infant and child feeding
• nutrition education intervention
• ultra‐processed foods

• Humans
• Brazil
• Female
• Infant
• Male
• Adult
• Dietary Sugars/administration & dosage
• Fast Foods
• Counseling/methods
• Diet/methods
• Mothers/psychology
• Nutrition Policy
• Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena
• Surveys and Questionnaires
• Breast Feeding
• Food Handling/methods
• Feeding Behavior/psychology
• Food, Processed

• This study was funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) N°408125/2017-9.

• Breastfeeding
• CEBQ
• Complementary feeding
• Complementary foods
• Dietary patterns
• FFQ
• Mealtime practices

• Adult
• Child, Preschool
• Female
• Humans
• Infant
• Male
• Breast Feeding/psychology
• Cross-Sectional Studies
• Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena
• Meals/psychology
• Mothers/psychology
• Poland
• Screen Time
• Surveys and Questionnaires

• bioinformatics
• bitter peptides
• bitterness mechanism
• database
• predictive models

• Humans
• Computational Biology/methods
• Peptides/chemistry
• Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship
• Taste
• Animals
• Machine Learning

• 82130112, 62372090 National Natural Science Foundation of China

• Food consumption
• Food neophobia
• Genetic
• Parental control
• Weight Status

• Humans
• Cues
• Databases, Factual
• Diet, Healthy
• Food
• Infant, Newborn
• Infant
• Child, Preschool
• Child
• Adolescent

• Ministero della Salute

• Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• Autism
• Epigenomics
• Heavy metals
• Parenteral nutrition
• Ultra-processed foods

• development
• neuroplasticity
• parental
• peer
• postnatal
• social complexity

• Social Behavior
• Brain
• Social Environment
• Cognition

• (1R01ES030950-01A1) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

• Vietnam
• child growth
• dietary diversity
• longitudinal study
• temporal dietary patterns

• Adolescent
• Children
• Glycaemic index
• Glycaemic load
• Glycaemic response
• Infant
• Workshop

• Adolescent
• Humans
• Child
• Adult
• Blood Glucose/metabolism
• Diet
• Glucose
• Food
• Insulin
• Postprandial Period
• Glycemic Index

• Universität Paderborn (3159)

• artificial selection
• developmental programming
• early-life effects
• exercise
• fructose
• wheel running

• 24-h urine
• children
• dietary sodium
• essential arterial hypertension
• food frequency questionnaire

• Male
• Female
• Humans
• Child
• Child, Preschool
• Adolescent
• Blood Pressure
• Sodium Chloride, Dietary/adverse effects
• Sodium Chloride, Dietary/metabolism
• Cross-Sectional Studies
• Hypertension/etiology
• Hypertension/complications
• Body Weight
• Sodium Chloride
• Feeding Behavior

• 09-MEFOS-2021 and IP-17-MEFOS-2022 Faculty of Medicine Osijek institutional research projects

• child eating behaviours
• child feeding
• food environment
• maternal food choice
• meal occasions
• nutrition transition

• beverages
• commercial complementary food
• fortification
• infants
• salt
• sugar
• toddlers

• Japan
• breastfeeding
• colostrum
• correlational design
• glutamic acid
• habitual dietary behaviors
• human milk
• mature milk
• umami
• whey

• BMI
• anthropometry
• early childhood
• juice
• middle childhood

• Project Viva
• birth cohort
• causal inference
• child diet quality
• complementary feeding
• taste preferences

• Adolescent
• Breast Feeding
• Child
• Child, Preschool
• Diet
• Diet, Healthy
• Feeding Behavior
• Female
• Humans
• Infant
• Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena

• R01 HD034568 NICHD NIH HHS
• UH3 OD023286 NIH HHS
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
• NIH

Background: Numerous studies have shown how diet, such as sodium (Na) and potassium (K) intake, is an important risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This study aimed to assess the relationship between sodium intake, potassium intake; and sodium/potassium ratio with blood pressure (BP) and abdominal obesity amongst Ellisras rural children. Method: In this cross-sectional study, data on dietary intake of sodium and potassium were collected using a 24-h recall questionnaire from a total of 765 participants, aged 5–13 years. Blood pressure and anthropometric measurements were also collected. Generalised linear models and Pearson correlation were conducted to assess the association of sodium intake, potassium intake; and their ratio with BP, waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Results: In both age groups, less than 14.9% of males and 19.8% of females consumed above the recommended adequate intake (AI) of sodium. In addition, both age groups had more than 90% of males and females who consumed below the recommended AI of potassium. Moreover, the sodium/potassium ratio was above the WHO recommended level in more than 30% of males and females. The study found a significant, weak positive correlation of sodium intake with systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), and with WHtR. A significant, weak positive correlation was also found between sodium/potassium ratio and WHtR. In addition, a significant association was found between potassium intake and systolic BP. Conclusion: Although our study found a notable low average intake of sodium and potassium as compared to the recommended values. There was positive correlation found between sodium intake and BP. Furthermore, a positive correlation of sodium intake and sodium/potassium ratio with WHtR was also found.

• Adolescent
• Brazil
• Carbohydrates
• Cross-Sectional Studies
• Diet
• Energy Intake
• Feeding Behavior
• Female
• Humans
• Lipids

• Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (BR)
• Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos

• Flavor learning
• Infant vegetable intake
• Maternal diet
• Passive flavor transfer
• Postnatal vegetable intake
• Prenatal vegetable intake

• Adult
• Humans
• Infant
• Pregnancy
• Diet
• Feeding Behavior
• Mothers
• Taste
• Vegetables
• Female
• Maternal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena

• 100% juice
• WIC
• diet quality
• sugar-sweetened beverages
• toddlers

• Beverages
• Child, Preschool
• Diet
• Food Assistance
• Fruit
• Humans
• Infant
• Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
• Whole Grains

Health benefits of fruit and vegetable have been well recognized. However, insufficient consumption of fruit and vegetable is prevalent among toddlers, and has become a global public health issue. Maternal feeding practices are potential factors influencing toddlers’ dietary intake, including fruit and vegetable intake. This study was conducted to explore the influence of maternal feeding practices on toddlers’ fruit and vegetable consumption in Ireland.

A follow-up to the DIT-Coombe Hospital birth cohort was conducted. Mothers in the original cohort were invited to participate in the present follow-up study by phone. A questionnaire assessing maternal feeding behavior and the child’s 3-day food diary was sent to mothers who agreed to take part in the present study by post, together with a self-addressed stamped envelope.

There were 193 mother-children pairs included in the analysis, and the mean age of children was 2.4 (SD 0.7) years old. Toddlers’ mean daily intakes of vegetable and fruit were 67.57 (SD 45.95) g and 213.35 (SD 170.78) g, respectively. Logistic regression analyses showed that maternal practice of breastfeeding for more than 4 weeks was positively associated with fruit (OR = 2.93, 95% CI: 1.29–6.64) and vegetable (OR = 1.95, 95% CI: 1.00–3.81) intake or the contribution of fruit (OR = 2.62, 95% CI: 1.19–5.80) and vegetable (OR = 2.02, 95% CI: 1.02–3.99) to the total diet. Letting the child eat with other family members was associated with high vegetable intake (OR = 5.45, 95%CI: 1.69–17.61) and high contribution of vegetable to total diet (OR = 3.78, 95% CI: 1.04–13.82). Not being too worried about the child’s refusal to eat was positively associated with toddlers’ vegetable intake (OR = 2.10, 95%CI: 1.09–4.05).

To increase children’s fruit and vegetable intake, and develop good eating habits, parents should eat with their toddlers, be patient and not put much pressure on their children in the context of meal feeding.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12937-021-00743-z.

• Contribution to total dietary intake
• Feeding
• Fruit and vegetable intake
• The DIT-Coombe Hospital birth cohort
• Toddlers

• Constipation
• Eating behaviour
• Feeding difficulties
• Milk hypersensitivity
• Nutritional status
• Picky eating

The significant increase in chronic non-communicable diseases has changed the global epidemiological landscape. Among these, obesity is the most relevant in the pediatric field. This has pushed the world of research towards a new paradigm: preventive and predictive medicine. Therefore, the window of extreme plasticity that characterizes the first stage of development cannot be underestimated. In this context, nutrition certainly plays a primary role, being one of the most important epigenetic modulators known to date. Weaning, therefore, has a crucial role that must be analyzed far beyond the simple achievement of nutritional needs. Furthermore, the taste experience and the family context are fundamental for future food choices and can no longer be underestimated. The use of metabolomics allows, through the recognition of early disease markers and food-specific metabolites, the planning of an individualized and precise diet. In addition, the possibility of identifying particular groups of subjects at risk and the careful monitoring of adherence to dietary therapy may represent the basis for this change.

• complementary feeding
• epigenetics
• flavor
• metabolomics
• weaning

• Epigenesis, Genetic
• Feeding Behavior
• Humans
• Metabolomics
• Models, Biological
• Taste/genetics
• Weaning

Mere exposure is an often-described strategy to increase children’s food familiarity, preferences, and intake. Research investigating this method in less controlled settings is scarce. This study investigates the effects of repeated fruit and vegetable (FV) exposure through the Healthy Primary School of the Future (HPSF) on children’s FV familiarity, preferences, and intake. The study had a longitudinal quasi-experimental design comparing two full HPSFs (focus: nutrition and physical activity) with two partial HPSFs (focus: physical activity) in the Netherlands. Annual measurements (child-reported questionnaires) were conducted during 2015–2019 in 833 7–12-year-old children. The study was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02800616). After correction for baseline, full HPSFs had, on average, a lower number of unfamiliar vegetable items after one (effect size (ES) = −0.28) and three years (ES = −0.35) and a higher number of disliked vegetable items after one year (ES = 0.24) than partial HPSFs. Unfavorable intervention effects were observed for fruit intake after one (odds ratio (OR) = 0.609) and four years (OR = 0.451). Repeated FV exposure had limited effects on children’s FV familiarity, preferences, and intake, likely due to insufficient taste exposure. Considering the widespread implementation of school-based mere exposure efforts, it is highly relevant to further investigate under which circumstances mere exposure effectively contributes to improvements in (determinants of) FV intake.

• eating habits
• familiarity
• health promoting school
• nutrition
• primary school
• repeated exposure
• taste preferences

• beverage intake
• health disparities
• juice intake
• juice introduction
• sociodemographic correlates
• sugar-sweetened beverage intake

Weanling piglets appear to be poorly adapted and motivated to ingest solid feed due to the innate reluctance of young animals to ingest an unfamiliar feed or flavor, i.e., feed neophobia, which commonly results in a period of underfeeding. This, and other common wean stress factors, lead to gastrointestinal disorders and impaired growth performance. Increasing the preference or familiarity for a certain type of food or for specific flavors may improve voluntary feed intake in weanling piglets. Botanical compounds (BCs) are described as functional feed additives and include sensorial properties that are able to influence feed intake and growth in pigs by dietary supplementation or sensory maternal learning. In this study, the effects of BCs such as D-limonene, trans-anethole, and eucalyptol on innate feed preference and growth performance of weanling piglets were evaluated by means of a double-choice feeding test and pre- and postnatal exposure to these compounds.

In the present research, two studies were performed to determine the effects of specific botanical compounds (BCs) on the innate feed preference and feed intake of piglets, as follows: Exp. 1 studied the innate feed preferences of post-weaning piglets using a double-choice feeding test. A total of 828 weaned piglets were distributed into 36 pens (23 pigs/pen) and assigned to three dietary pair choice feeding options (n = 12): unsupplemented prestarter diets (reference) versus reference plus D-limonene, trans-anethole, or eucalyptol. Piglets showed a preference for diets with D-limonene (53.8%) and trans-anethole (54.5%), and an aversion to eucalyptol (41.6%) (p < 0.05). Exp. 2 studied whether the prenatal and perinatal exposure to D-limonene, trans-anethole, and eucalyptol influences the feed intake and growth of newly-weaned piglets. Twenty-eight gestating and lactating sows were distributed into two dietary treatments (n = 14): unsupplemented Control diets or Control plus a blend of BCs (BBC; containing D-limonene, trans-anethole, and eucalyptol). D-limonene, trans-anethole, and eucalyptol were transferred into the placental fluid, and D-limonene and trans-anethole into the milk (p < 0.05). Furthermore, weanling piglets (n = 200; Control) and (n = 203; BBC) received the same treatment as their mothers in prestarter diets. The early response after weaning showed that piglets’ post-weaning BW gain was higher in the Control (p < 0.05) group than in those exposed to BBC. In conclusion, prenatal exposure to preferred D-limonene and trans-anethole, or familiarity to eucalyptol did not help to overcome the innate aversion to eucalyptol and its negative effect on weanling piglets’ BW.

• botanical compounds
• growth performance
• hyperprolific sows
• innate feed preference
• maternal transfer
• sensory maternal learning
• weanling piglets

In the last decade, the role of nutritional management in pediatric gastrointestinal diseases has gained increasing popularity. Disease-specific diets have been introduced as conventional treatments by international guidelines. Patients tend to more willingly accept food-based therapies than drugs because of their relatively “harmless” nature. Apart from a diet’s therapeutic role, nutritional support is crucial in maintaining growth and improving clinical outcomes in pediatric patients. Despite the absence of classical “side effects”, however, it should be emphasized that any dietary modification might have negative consequences on children’s growth and development. Hence, expert supervision is always advised, in order to support adequate nutritional requirements. Unfortunately, the media provide an inaccurate perception of the role of diet for gastrointestinal diseases, leading to misconceptions by patients or their caregivers that tends to overestimate the beneficial role of diets and underestimate the potential adverse effects. Moreover, not only patients, but also healthcare professionals, have a number of misconceptions about the nutritional benefits of diet modification on gastrointestinal diseases. The aim of this review is to highlight the role of diet in pediatric gastrointestinal diseases, to detect misconceptions and to give a practical guide for physicians on the basis of current scientific evidence.

• diet
• eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases
• food
• functional gastrointestinal diseases
• inflammatory bowel diseases
• non-IgE-mediated gastrointestinal food allergy
• nutrition
• pediatric gastrointestinal diseases
• therapy

• Abdominal Pain
• Animals
• Cattle
• Child
• Child, Preschool
• Diet
• Enteritis/diet therapy
• Enteritis/physiopathology
• Eosinophilia/diet therapy
• Eosinophilia/physiopathology
• Food Hypersensitivity
• Gastritis/diet therapy
• Gastritis/physiopathology
• Gastrointestinal Diseases/diet therapy
• Gastrointestinal Diseases/physiopathology
• Gastrointestinal Microbiome/physiology
• Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
• Humans
• Infant
• Infant, Newborn
• Inflammatory Bowel Diseases/diet therapy
• Inflammatory Bowel Diseases/physiopathology
• Milk/adverse effects
• Milk/immunology
• Nutrition Therapy
• Nutritional Requirements
• Practice Guidelines as Topic
• Probiotics

• Child development
• Experiential learning
• Feeding behaviour
• Food acceptance
• Vegetables

• complementary feeding
• food preferences
• infant feeding
• infant nutrition
• solid foods
• taste
• weaning

This exploratory research focused on the cultural variables involved in children’s vegetable consumption, through the analysis of mothers’ perceptions, attitudes, and feeding practices regarding their children’s intake, using qualitative consumer research methods. Twelve focus groups of mothers with children between 2–12 years old (Euro-Americans n = 20, Chinese n = 19, and Chilean n = 19) were conducted. All participants lived in Northern California, had higher education, and incomes that did not limit their vegetable purchase. Intercultural differences in vegetable preferences and consumption habits were found. Mothers across all groups agreed on the importance of children’s vegetable consumption, the influence that mothers have over their children’s vegetable intake, and how challenging it is to get children to eat a variety of vegetables. The ethnic groups differed regarding how they perceived the level of mothers’ responsibility over children’s vegetable intake, the way that mothers defined the amount of vegetables that children should eat, the constraints that mothers had on increasing their children’s vegetable intake and mothers’ recommendations to encourage vegetable consumption. Our study suggests that under similar socio-economic and parental education levels, culture-specific strategies should be considered to foster healthy dietary habits in children.

• children
• cross-cultural
• eating behavior
• feeding practices
• mothers
• vegetables

In Western countries, children’s diets are often low in fruits and vegetables and high in discretionary foods. Diet in early life tends to track through childhood and youth and even into adulthood. Interventions should, therefore, be delivered in periods when habitual traits are established, as in toddlerhood when children adapt to their family’s diet.

In this study, we assessed the effect of the Food4toddlers eHealth intervention, which aimed to enhance toddlers’ diets by shaping their food and eating environment.

The Food4toddlers randomized controlled trial was conducted in Norway in 2017-2018. Parent-child dyads were recruited through social media. In total, 298 parents completed an online questionnaire at baseline (mean child age 10.9 months, SD 1.2). Postintervention questionnaires were completed immediately after the intervention (ie, follow-up 1; mean child age 17.8 months, SD 1.3) and 6 months after the intervention (ie, follow-up 2; mean child age 24.2 months, SD 1.9). The intervention was guided by social cognitive theory, which targets the linked relationship between the person, the behavior, and the environment. The intervention group (148/298, 49.7%) got access to the Food4toddlers website for 6 months from baseline. The website included information on diet and on how to create a healthy food and eating environment as well as activities, recipes, and collaboration opportunities. To assess intervention effects on child diet from baseline to follow-up 1 and from baseline to follow-up 2, we used generalized estimating equations and a time × group interaction term. Between-group differences in changes over time for frequency and variety of fruits and vegetables and frequency of discretionary foods were assessed.

At follow-up 1, a significant time × group interaction was observed for the frequency of vegetable intake (P=.02). The difference between groups in the change from baseline to follow-up 1 was 0.46 vegetable items per day (95% CI 0.06-0.86) in favor of the intervention group. No other significant between-group differences in dietary changes from baseline to follow-up 1 or follow-up 2 were observed. However, there is a clear time trend showing that the intake of discretionary foods increases by time from less than 1 item per week at baseline to more than 4 items per week at 2 years of age (P<.001), regardless of group.

A positive intervention effect was observed for the frequency of vegetable intake at follow-up 1 but not at follow-up 2. No other between-group effects on diet were observed. eHealth interventions of longer duration, including reminders after the main content of the intervention has been delivered, may be needed to obtain long-terms effects, along with tailoring in a digital or a personal form.

International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) 92980420; https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN92980420

• child
• discretionary food
• eHealth
• fruit
• intervention
• randomized controlled trial
• toddler
• vegetable

• infant
• juice
• obesity
• overweight
• parent knowledge
• sugar-sweetened beverages

• Aversive taste
• Ontogeny
• Rats
• Transmission through maternal milk

Children are vulnerable to adverse effects of food advertising. Food commercials are known to increase hedonic, taste-oriented, and unhealthy food decisions. The current study examined how promoting resilience to food commercials impacted susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making in children. To promote resilience to food commercials, we utilized the food advertising literacy intervention intended to enhance cognitive skepticism and critical thinking, and decrease positive attitudes toward commercials. Thirty-six children aged 8–12 years were randomly assigned to the food advertising literacy intervention or the control condition. Eighteen children received four brief intervention sessions via video over 1 week period. In each session, children watched six food commercials with interspersed embedded intervention narratives. While watching food commercials and narratives, children were encouraged to speak their thoughts out loud spontaneously (“think-aloud”), which provided children's attitudes toward commercials. Eighteen children in the control condition had four control sessions over 1 week, and watched the same food commercials without intervention narratives while thinking aloud. The first and last sessions were held in the laboratory, and the second and third sessions were held at the children's homes. Susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making was indicated by the decision weights of taste attributes, taste perception, food choices, ad libitum snacking, and cognitive and affective attitudes toward food commercials. As hypothesized, the intervention successfully decreased susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making evidenced by reduced decision weights of the taste in food decisions, decreased tasty perception of unhealthy foods, and increased cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward food commercials. In addition, as children's opinions assimilated to intervention narratives, their cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward commercials increased. The aforementioned results were not shown in the control condition. However, this brief intervention was not enough to change actual food choices or food consumption. Results of this study suggest that promoting resilience to food commercials by enhancing cognitive skepticism and critical thinking effectively reduced children's susceptibility to unhealthy food-decision making.

• advertising literacy
• children
• eating behavior
• food commercials
• food decisions
• obesity

• Cronobacter
• antimicrobials
• natural
• powdered infant formula
• safety

Maternal intake of high fat diet (HFD) increases risk for obesity and metabolic disorders in offspring. Developmental programming of taste preference is a potential mechanism by which this occurs. Whether maternal HFD during pregnancy, lactation, or both, imposes greater risks for altered taste preferences in adult offspring remains a question, and in turn, was investigated in the present study. Four groups of offspring were generated based on maternal HFD access: (1) HFD during pregnancy and lactation (HFD); (2) HFD during pregnancy (HFD-pregnancy); (3) HFD during lactation (HFD-lactation); and (4) normal diet (ND) during pregnancy and lactation (ND). Adult offspring 70 days of age underwent sensory and motivational taste preference testing with various concentrations of sucrose and Intralipid solutions using brief-access automated gustometers (Davis-rigs) and 24 h two-bottle choice tests, respectively. To control for post-gestational diet effects, offspring in all experimental groups were weaned on ND, and did not differ in body weight or glucose tolerance at the time of testing. Offspring exposed to maternal HFD showed increased sensory taste responses for 0.3, 0.6, 1.2 M sucrose solutions in HFD and 0.6 M in HFD-pregnancy groups, compared to animals exposed to ND. Similar effects were noted for lower concentrations of Intralipid in HFD (0.05, 0.10%) and HFD-pregnancy (0.05, 0.10, 0.5%) groups. The HFD-lactation group showed an opposite, diminished responsiveness for sucrose at the highest concentrations (0.9, 1.2, 1.5 M), but not for Intralipid, compared to ND animals. Extended-access two-bottle tests did not reveal major difference across the groups. Our study shows that maternal HFD during pregnancy and lactation has markedly different effects on preferences for palatable sweet and fatty solutions in adult offspring and suggests that such developmental programing may primarily affect gustatory mechanisms. Future studies are warranted for determining the impact of taste changes on development of obesity and metabolic disorders in a “real” food environment with food choices available, as well as to identify specific underlying mechanisms.

• high fat diet
• lactation
• obesity
• oral and post-oral feedback
• pregnancy
• taste preferences

This study examines the information potential of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography combined with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOF MS) and variable ionization energy (i.e., Tandem Ionization™) to study changes in saliva metabolic signatures from a small group of obese individuals. The study presents a proof of concept for an effective exploitation of the complementary nature of tandem ionization data. Samples are taken from two sub-populations of severely obese (BMI > 40 kg/m²) patients, named metabolically healthy obese (MHO) and metabolically unhealthy obese (MUO). Untargeted fingerprinting, based on pattern recognition by template matching, is applied on single data streams and on fused data, obtained by combining raw signals from the two ionization energies (12 and 70 eV). Results indicate that at lower energy (i.e., 12 eV), the total signal intensity is one order of magnitude lower compared to the reference signal at 70 eV, but the ranges of variations for 2D peak responses is larger, extending the dynamic range. Fused data combine benefits from 70 eV and 12 eV resulting in more comprehensive coverage by sample fingerprints. Multivariate statistics, principal component analysis (PCA), and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) show quite good patient clustering, with total explained variance by the first two principal components (PCs) that increases from 54% at 70 eV to 59% at 12 eV and up to 71% for fused data. With PLS-DA, discriminant components are highlighted and putatively identified by comparing retention data and 70 eV spectral signatures. Within the most informative analytes, lactose is present in higher relative amount in saliva from MHO patients, whereas N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, urea, glucuronic acid γ-lactone, 2-deoxyribose, N-acetylneuraminic acid methyl ester, and 5-aminovaleric acid are more abundant in MUO patients. Visual feature fingerprinting is combined with pattern recognition algorithms to highlight metabolite variations between composite per-class images obtained by combining raw data from individuals belonging to different classes, i.e., MUO vs. MHO.

Graphical abstract

• Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry
• Fused data from multiplexed ionization
• Saliva metabolome
• Untargeted fingerprinting by template matching
• Variable ionization energy

• early care and education
• evaluation
• food waste
• policy
• preschool
• school nutrition standards

• Adult
• Child Day Care Centers/standards
• Child, Preschool
• Early Intervention, Educational
• Feeding Behavior
• Female
• Food Assistance
• Food Services/standards
• Food Services/statistics & numerical data
• Food Supply/statistics & numerical data
• Humans
• Male
• North Carolina
• Nutrition Policy
• Poverty
• Program Evaluation
• South Carolina
• Waste Products/statistics & numerical data

• T32DK062707 NIH HHS

• GPCRs
• beer
• bitter taste
• chemical space
• diabetes
• hops
• molecular modeling

• Amino Acid Sequence
• Beer/analysis
• Computer Simulation
• Cyclohexenes/chemistry
• Cyclohexenes/metabolism
• Flavoring Agents/chemistry
• Flavoring Agents/metabolism
• Humans
• Humulus/chemistry
• Humulus/metabolism
• Molecular Structure
• Protein Binding
• Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled/chemistry
• Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled/genetics
• Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled/metabolism
• Sequence Alignment
• Taste
• Terpenes/chemistry
• Terpenes/metabolism

A perception of insufficient milk supply (PIMS) is associated with early discontinuation of breastfeeding. Ideally, an objective measure of milk supply would either dispel or confirm this perception and provide reassurance or guide professional advice. Clinical signs of sufficient milk intake (steady growth, sufficient elimination, infant alertness and breasts feeling full before breastfeeds and soft after breastfeeds) should provide confidence in milk supply. We surveyed 423 mothers in early lactation who had breastfeeding problems to determine the proportion that had PIMS and to determine if the mothers with PIMS relied on these clinical signs or other perceptions of their infants' behaviour as indications of insufficient milk supply. By 3 weeks after birth, we found that the rate of PIMS among mothers with breastfeeding problems was 44%. Supplementary infant formula was being given to 66% of the infants, so the clinical indications were that milk intake was sufficient, but 74% of the mothers with PIMS cited concerns that their infants did not appear satisfied after breastfeeds. After targeted advice from lactation consultants, mothers with PIMS showed positive changes in their perceptions of their milk supply, underlining the value of professional guidance soon after birth. We conclude that an appearance of infant dissatisfaction is the major cause of PIMS in Western Australia.

• breast milk production
• breastfeeding problems
• perceived insufficient milk