• Agnieszka Sorokowska, Dominika Chabin, Thomas Hummel, and Maciej Karwowski.
• Smell and Taste Research Lab, Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland. Electronic address: Agnieszka.sorokowska@uwr.edu.pl.
• Nutrition. 2022 Jun 1; 98: 111618.

ObjectivesFood neophobia is a rejection or avoidance of novel food products. Despite the adaptive importance of this behavior, it exerts a negative influence on dietary habits and preferences. Sensory sensitivity relates to food neophobia and among specific sensory modalities, olfaction seems to be an obvious candidate for a correlate of this behavior as odor perception largely affects food intake and enjoyment. However, research on olfactory perception and food neophobia is scarce, and despite some promising results, the full picture of their association still awaits discovery. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between food neophobia and olfaction in adolescents, a group that has not been included in the previous studies investigating this association.MethodsWe tested the olfactory perception-food neophobia relationship in 510 adolescents 15 to 17 y of age using a food neophobia questionnaire, a psychophysical odor identification test, a self-assessment of odor sensitivity, an odor significance questionnaire, and through odor pleasantness assessments.ResultsWe observed significant correlations between food neophobia and all included measures of olfactory perception.ConclusionThe overall regression model suggested that self-assessed sensitivity and odor awareness were the most influential, olfaction-related predictors of food neophobia in adolescents.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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