Literature review of children’s taste and its evaluation in Japan

Abstract

 Children’s sense of taste is closely related to their diets, which are strongly influenced by their cultural backgrounds and affects their physical growth and subsequent psychosocial development. We examined studies on taste in children aged under 18 years in Japan. This study aimed to clarify the characteristics of participants and method of taste evaluation, and examine the indication age of each test and its clinical application for pediatric nursing. The literature search was conducted using ICHUSHI (Web version) and CiNii Articles databases, which yielded 53 articles. The literature was classified into whole taste and abnormal taste. When objectively assessing taste in clinical pediatric nursing, it was recommended that a proxy evaluation by a third party, such as a parent or guardian, be used as a reference for children aged under 6, as the reliability of the test results is not yet fully verified. This study suggests the need to establish an evaluation method that provides subjective and objective indicators of children’s sense of taste, and to consider specific support for children’s eating habits.