Abstract

Childhood obesity is a serious public health problem in Mexico and worldwide. The study of food preferences in young children can help prevent selection of unhealthy food, which in recent years has increased. The goal of the study was to explore the food preferences of a sample of preschoolers and to determine whether they were able to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy food. We sampled 127 preschoolers between 3 and 6 years of age (M = 5.0, SD = .69). Participants were asked to classify 88 types of food into 11 categories. They were also asked to indicate the types of food that they like and that are healthy and unhealthy. Participants indicated that they preferred the sugars (candy, ice cream) and fruits (apples, melon) groups and disliked vegetables. They identified fruits and vegetables as healthy and sugars and fats as unhealthy food.