Cognitive schemas: how can we use them to improve children's acceptance of diverse and unfamiliar foods?

Foods represent important stimuli for humans, especially for human children. After weaning, it is important that children quickly acquire knowledge about their food environment to avoid ingesting potentially dangerous substances. This paper discusses this process and its implications in terms of schemas. The effects of providing positive taste information to novel foods and of adding familiar flavors to novel foods are interpreted by means of the schema construct. A means of changing schemas through exposure to schema-inconsistent information is presented and evidence for its efficacy is described. Finally, the effect of early variety on subsequent willingness to eat unfamiliar foods is described and once again interpreted by means of the schema construct.