Have you ever tasted a food as a child and because you didn't like it, you never ate it again? Every human has a flavor that he or she prefers over other tastes. Preference in flavors can lead to overeating that particular food causing unhealthy habits and malnutrition. So why do we develop these preferences? What causes our bodies to appreciate one taste over another so heavily?

Developmental psychologists have created multiple theories that describe how previous experiences and environmental influences dictate taste preference from fetus stage throughout childhood.

A common preference is of salty foods over sweet foods. Certain studies specializing in salt preferences in particular show that instead of previous experience with the flavor, what causes the salty taste preference in the child is the mother's experience during her pregnancy with that child. The main points of many studies explain that a mother's diet and lifestyle habits during her pregnancy are influencing factors on the child's taste preference.

Each of the key ideas of these theories provides an explanation as to why infants and children grow up developing a salt preference. Although their hypotheses are different, each of these arguments includes the idea that the outside environment manipulates the child to prefer the taste.

For example, family influences what the child eats as he or she is growing up. These theories are accurate in including that the age of the child matters when experimenting for taste preferences.

A salty taste preference is developed prenatally and is continued as long as the child has repeated exposure to salted foods until about age five or six, when the brain is not developing as rapidly as it was during earlier childhood.

Environmental influences like home situations or food availability can affect the long-term effects of the child's salty taste preference as well.