The consumption of vegetables by school age children continues to be below national pediatric recommendations> Preference has been identified as the most important predictor of food intake. Therefore, identifying the most effective strategies are necessary to increase preferences for fruits and vegetables. Repeated exposures (RE) is a traditional, evidence-based method used to modify preferences. Recent research has demonstrated that repeated exposure to photos of food can increase acceptance. However, school age children diagnosed with color vision deficiency (CVD) have not been included in these research studies. Therefore, the effect of color on food selection in children with CVD remains unknown.
Three healthy school aged children diagnosed with CVD were included in an A-B research design with a pre- and post-test free eating task. During an intervention period of eight sessions, they had intensive, repeated visual exposure to pictures vegetables (V) and fruits (F) over a period of one week. Primary outcome measures were selection measured through (1) eye gaze collected via artificial intelligence (AI) Tobii Nano and (2) participant color and volume selection during the pre- and post-free eating task. After completion of the intervention, post-intervention data were collected from the children (three boys, age 13-17; SD ± 1.25). The repeated exposure intervention resulted in no change in selection of fruit and vegetables for individuals with CVD. The free eating task showed no change in food preference compared to baseline. However, two of three participants did trial a novel food during the post-test assessment. The findings of this preliminary study suggest that repeated visual exposure may not lead to alter food selection for individuals with CVD.