Evolution of Food Oral Processing Behaviours, Food Bolus Formation and Texture Preferences Between 6 to 12 Years Old and Adult Age

Oral processing duration (sec) measured with video recording and automated video analysis

Number of chews measured with video recording and automated video analysis

Oro-sensory exposure time (s/g) measured with video recording and automated video analysis

Saliva uptake (%) of bolus collected at swallowing, measured from food and bolus mass (g) and dry matter (g)

Hardness (N) of bolus collected at swallowing obtained from simple compression test with texturometer compression test

Size of the particles (mm) measured from a scan of the bolus diluted in glycerol and automated image analysis

Number of bolus particles measured from a scan of the bolus diluted in glycerol and automated image analysis

Number of teeth stained after biting down on blue paper (3 times) measured by visual assessment

Total number of teeth in the mouth measured from visual assessment

Stage of primary dentition (first transitional stage, inter-transitional stage and second transitional stage) assessed from teeth photographs by dental professionals

Maximum strength (kPa) measured with the Iowa Oral Pressure Instrument (IOPI)

Ability to mix two colored chewing gum after 15 chewing cycles, measured with gum scan and automated image analysis

BMI z-scores (BMIz) obtained from body weight (kg; measured using a weighing scale) and height (cm; measured using a stadiometer) transformed into corrected for age and sex according to the WHO child growth reference for school-aged children and adolescents

Child oral self-report of consumption frequency of offered food consumption ('not at all'; 'from time to time'; 'often'; 'very often')

Parent report on the consumption frequency by the child for the offered food. Report collected in questionnaire ('never'; 'less than once a month'; 'two to three times a month'; 'once a week'; 'two to four times a week'; 'once a day'; and 'two or more times a day')

Oral self-report of the familiarity with the offered food (0 : not familiar/1 : familiar)

Oral self-report whether the offered foods is or not difficult to eat (0 : not difficult/1 : difficult)

Self-report on a food texture preference questionnaire. The questionnaire is composed of 17 pairs of soft/smooth and hard/particulate foods. For each pair, the participant chose the preferred one (forced-choice). Soft/Smooth versions will have a value of 1 and hard/particulate version a value of 2. Cumulation of the values provides a Texture preference index. Higher score means higher preference for textured foods.

Parent-reports of their child chewing abilities using a questionnaire (Schwartz et al., 2021).

The questionnaire is composed of 5 questions. Parents answer by one of the 'yes', 'no' and 'I don't know'. Questions are grouped in two dimensions

: 'difficulty of coping with hard/difficult textures' (higher score means lower difficulty) 'extend to which children chew their food before swallowing' (the higher the score, the better the child chews the food before swallowing)

Parent-reports on the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) will be used to characterize the appetitive traits of the participants (Wardle et al., 2001). The questionnaire is composed of 35 items. Parent answers to each item using 5- point Likert scale ranging from never (1) to always (5) (never, rarely, sometimes, often, always. The items are then grouped to define 8 dimensions: 'food responsiveness', 'enjoyment of food', 'emotional over-eating', 'desire to drink', 'satiety responsiveness', 'slowness in eating', 'emotional undereating' and 'food fussiness'. Higher scores mean higher behaviours.