LAUSR

OBJECTIVE to validate the food neophobia scale (FNS) and determine factors associated with the presence of food neophobia in a sample of Lebanese children. DESIGN Cross-sectional study conducted between July and December 2019. SETTING All Lebanese governorates. PARTICIPANTS Parents of Lebanese children aged 2 to 10 years. RESULTS Out of 850 questionnaires, 194 were excluded. The mean age of children was 5.34 ± 2.20 (50.8% females); 238 (36.4%) had low neophobia scores (≤37), whereas 219 (33.5%) and 197 (30.1%) had respectively moderate (between 38 and 41) and severe neophobia scores (≥42). All items of the FNS were extracted except item 8 and yielded a two-factor solution with Eigenvalues > 1 (variance explained = 51.64%; KMO=0.746; Bartlett's sphericity test p<0.001; αCronbach=0.739). Children who refused initially to eat vegetables (ß=5.51), fish (ß=4.57), fruits (ß=4.75) or eggs (ß=2.99), and higher parents' instrumental feeding scores (ß=0.3) were significantly associated with higher neophobia scores, whereas higher parents' encouragement scores (ß= -0.21) were significantly associated with lower neophobia scores in children. CONCLUSION Food neophobia is common in children. Neophobic children tend to have lower variety in their diets. One of the ways to lower the levels of neophobia is the use of encouragement by the parents. In contrast, offering a reward to children for them to eat a certain food was associated with more signs of avoidance. More studies should be conducted to evaluate awareness levels concerning food neophobia.