Comparison of sensory specific satiety and sensory specific desires to eat in children and adults

► We compared sensory specific satiety (SSS) (+other measures) in children and adults. ► A sweet pear banana yoghurt was used as the food eaten to satiation. ► SSS was expressed differently in children and adults. ► In children, SSS was primarily product specific and coupled to the yoghurt. ► In adults, SSS transferred to foods sharing sensory characteristics with the yoghurt. The aim of this experiment is to compare sensory specific satiety (SSS) and sensory specific desire to eat (SSD), which can be described as general wanting for certain taste categories and go beyond specific foods, in children and adults and their impact on subsequent food choices. Eighty-seven children (10.3 ± 0.6 years) and 49 adults (31.0 ± 2.0 years) participated in the study. Sweet pear banana yoghurt was used as the food eaten to satiation, and test foods representing sweet, salty, sour, bitter, “fatty”, and “spicy” flavors were also evaluated (foods not eaten). At baseline and post meal participants evaluated hunger, satiation, liking, and wanting for test foods and yoghurt, and desires on a 150 mm visual analogue score (VAS) scale. The yoghurt was eaten until a state of “comfortable satiation” was reached. Results showed that SSS and SSD were expressed differently in children and adults. In children, SSS was primarily product specific and bound to the yoghurt, whereas in adults SSS was transferred to the uneaten foods sharing sensory characteristics with the yoghurt (namely sweet, sour and “fatty”), which all decreased in their liking post meal. Similar differences were found for SSD. We conclude that children and adults differ in their expression of SSS and SSD, and this might have implications for planning meal compositions.