Caloric compensation and sensory specific satiety: evidence for self regulation of food intake by young children.

Twenty-one two and half- to five-year-old children and 26 25- to 35-year-old adults participated in an experiment designed to provide evidence for two behavioral mechanisms involved in self regulation of food intake: caloric compensation and sensory specific satiety. All participants were seen in two lunch sessions that differed in the caloric density of the preload presented. To obtain evidence on sensory specific satiety, preference data were obtained immediately before and after, and 20 min after preload consumption. Subjects then ate an ad libitum lunch and consumption was recorded. Both children's and adults' preferences for the food eaten declined relative to foods not eaten, providing the first evidence of sensory specific satiety in children. The patterns of preference did not differ with the caloric density of the food eaten. Children showed much clearer evidence for caloric compensation than did the adults.