Efforts to improve what children eat should begin before they even learn to walk, a series of nutritional studies published on Tuesday has found. Taken together, the data indicate that infant feeding patterns persist far longer than has been appreciated. “Our early taste preferences, particularly for fruits and vegetables, and on the flip side for sugary beverages, are lasting,” said Dr. Elsie M. Taveras, chief of the division of general pediatrics at Mass General Hospital for Children in Boston, who was not involved in the new research. “These studies are suggesting that in terms of diet quality, the die might be cast in the first year,” she added. The package of 11 studies was published in the journal Pediatrics and was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, among others. Investigators tracked the diets of roughly 1,500 6-year-olds, comparing their eating patterns to those observed in a study that followed them until age Previous research has shown that taste preferences are developed in infancy. Yet until now it was unclear how infant diets bear on what children prefer to consume years later, once in school.

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