Food neophobia is the fear of eating new or unfamiliar foods. It differs from selective eating disorder. Food neophobia is particularly common in toddlers and young children. It is often related to an individual’s level of sensation-seeking, meaning a person’s willingness to try new things and take risks. (See Sensation-seeking.) Not only do people with high food neophobia resist trying new food, they also rate new foods that they do try as lower than neophilics.[7]
It is very typical for people to generally have a fear of new things and to prefer things that are familiar and common. Most people experience food neophobia to a certain extent, though some people are more neophobic than others. A measure of individual differences in food neophobia is the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS), which consists of a 10-item survey that requires self-reported responses on a seven-point Likert scale.[8] There is also a separate scale geared towards children called the Food Neophobia Scale for Children (FNSC), in which the parents actually do the reporting for the survey.[9]
Food neophobia relates to the Omnivore’s Dilemma, a phenomenon that explains the choice that omnivores, and humans in particular, have between eating a new food and risking danger or avoiding it and potentially missing out on a valuable food source. Having at least some degree of food neophobia has been noted to be evolutionarily advantageous as it can help people to avoid eating potentially poisonous foods.[10]
Food neophobia differs from picky or “fussy” eating in that picky eaters will often reject familiar foods as well as unfamiliar foods, whereas food neophobia signifies rejecting only unfamiliar foods. Also, while food neophobic individuals will often accept novel foods after repeated exposure to them, picky eaters will continue to reject them.