Stability and change in snack food likes and dislikes from 5 to 11 years

Research on the development of snack food likes and dislikes from childhood to adolescence is limited. We investigated both the stability and the change in liking (i.e., " like" , " neither like nor dislike" , " dislike" ) and rank-order liking (i.e., liking one food more than others; e.g., " I like chocolate more than cookies" ) of snack foods from 5 to 11 years in non-Hispanic white girls. Liking of 10 palatable snack foods was assessed biennially. Girls' liking and rank-order liking of snack foods were modestly stable from age 5 to 11, and there was a tendency for initially disliked foods to become more liked.