Reduced Fat Taste Sensitivity and Its Association with Childhood Obesity in Tunisian Children: A Cross-Sectional Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Childhood obesity is a growing public health challenge, with altered taste perception potentially influencing food choices and contributing to weight gain. Objective: To determine detection thresholds for linoleic acid (fat taste) and sucrose (sweet taste) in children aged 6–12 years, and to explore associations with obesity, dietary intake, and food preferences. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 100 Tunisian children (mean age: 8.05 ± 1.44 years; 54% girls; 45 obese, 55 non-obese) were recruited from an educational support center in Nabeul. Taste sensitivity was evaluated using the 3-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) method with ascending concentrations of linoleic acid (0.018–12.0 mM) for fat taste and sucrose (0.00125–0.32 mol/L) for sweet taste. Participants were categorized as tasters or non-tasters based on detection thresholds. Anthropometric measurements, 24 h dietary recalls, food frequency questionnaires, and food preference assessments were also conducted. Results: Low taste sensitivity was common (93% for sweet, 49% for fat). Girls were more often fat tasters than boys (68.6% vs. 31.4%, p = 0.003). Children with obesity had higher fat taste thresholds (median 3.00 mM, range 0.37–12.0) than non-obese peers (median 1.50 mM, range 0.018–6.0; p = 0.012), indicating reduced fat taste sensitivity. Linear regression showed a significant positive association between fat taste threshold and BMI (p = 0.001), meaning higher detection thresholds corresponded to higher BMI. Sweet taste thresholds did not differ significantly between children with and without obesity (p = 0.731). Sweet non-tasters consumed more sucrose (85.9 ± 64.9 g/d vs. 70.3 ± 62.3 g/d; p = 0.033) and reported more frequent table sugar use (p = 0.047). Fat non-tasters consumed more magnesium (425 ± 414 mg/d vs. 287 ± 60.8 mg/d; p = 0.026) and fiber (22.9 ± 7.51 g/d vs. 20.3 ± 5.32 g/d; p = 0.048) and reported higher intake frequencies of cheese (p = 0.039), sour cream (p = 0.004), and fast food (p = 0.012). Food preferences reflected similar patterns, with non-tasters generally rating high-fat or high-sugar foods more favorably. While most children demonstrated high detection thresholds, girls showed significantly higher fat taste sensitivity compared to boys (p = 0.03). Children with obesity exhibited significantly higher fat taste detection thresholds compared to non-obese children (p = 0.012), with thresholds ranging from 0.37 to 12.0 mM versus 0.018 to 6.0 mM, respectively. No significant difference was observed for sweet taste perception between weight groups (p = 0.731). Conclusions: Nearly half of the children exhibited reduced fat taste sensitivity, which was moderately associated with obesity and positively linked to BMI.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".