The presented study investigates parental and child food neophobia and healthy eating behaviors among European families. The purpose was to analyze the relationship between parental and child neophobia, taking into account the importance of parental gender and family country of origin. The research is a part of the TITAN Project*, which aims to find solutions related to challenges of European families during transition to healthier and more sustainable eating behaviors. The study involved 720 parents from three European countries Spain, Finland and Poland (240 families from each country) with children aged between 6 to 12 years. The average age of adult participants was 41.2 in Spain, 35.9 in Poland and 39.4 years in Finland. The gender distribution was 48.8 % women in Spain, 74.6% in Poland and 62.9% in Finland. Data were collected using questionnaires, including the Food Neophobia Scale, developed by Pliner and Hobden (1992) for adults and a version adapted for children by Proserpio et al. (2020). The moderate positive correlation between parental and child neophobia has been shown. Taking into account parental gender and family country of origin, only parental food neophobia has significantly predicted child food neophobia. There was a significant interaction between the country and food neophobia among parents in the context of the strength of the relationship between parental and children's food neophobia. These results are partly consistent with psychological theoretical perspectives of transgenerational transmission such as attachment theory and social learning theory. A certain limitation of the study is the number of people studied in each country. It is worth continuing this study on a larger population of families.
* 2022-2026 Project Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action RIA, acronym TITAN 'Transparency solutions for transforming the food system' http://titanproject.eu/