Preferences Predict Food Intake From 5 to 11 Years,but Not in Girls With Higher Weight Concerns,Dietary Restraint,and %Body Fat

Food preferences (FP) predict food intake in childhood; however, the predictive power of FP may decline among girls as weight concerns (WC) and dietary restraint (DR) increase during preadolescence. To examine longitudinal change in the preference‐intake (P‐I) relation and assess whether this relation weakens among non‐Hispanic white girls (n = 197) with a history of WC and DR from age 5 to 11. Girls' preferences for and intake (kcal) of 10 palatable snack foods were assessed biennially. Height, weight, percent body fat (%BF), WC, and DR were measured. Individual correlation coefficients were calculated per girl to capture within‐person P‐I correlations at each time of measurement. Overall, FP predicted girls' snack food calorie intakes between 5 and 11 years, but latent profile analysis (LPA) revealed three distinct patterns of change in P‐I correlations over time: “strong/stable” P‐I correlations were relatively high and became stronger with age; “increasing/later null” P‐I correlations were initially weak and became stronger between 5 and 9 years, but dropped to near 0 at 11 years; “initially weak/later strong” P‐I correlations were initially null and increased with age. Mixed models revealed that the “increasing/later null” group had greater increases in %BF, and higher WC, DR, and BMI percentiles from 5 to 11 years, compared to the other groups. In summary, FP predicted snack food calorie intake among most girls during childhood, but waned as a predictor of calorie intake at age 11 for a subset of girls with increasing %BF, and higher WC, DR, and BMIs.