Abstract
Objectives This study is to find out how fungiform papillae count, which represents the density of taste buds, is related to eating behavior of children and adolescents. Methods The authors measured fungiform papillae count, height, and weight of 50 healthy children aged from 2 to 15. To evaluate the severity of anorexia, parents of the subjects answered modified version of Korean Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (K-CEBQ). Children with weight of less than 50th percentile were assigned to low-weight group, while the others to high-weight group. Pearson's correlation test was conducted in order to evaluate the relationship between modified K-CEBQ score and fungiform papillae count. Results Low-weight children scored $29.8{\pm}9.1$, while high-weight children scored $24.5{\pm}7.1$. (p<0.05) on modified K-CEBQ Pearson's correlation coefficient between modified K-CEBQ score and fungiform papillae count was 0.503 (p<0.05) in low-weight group, 0.260 in high-weight group, and 0.339 (p<0.05) in total. However, there were no statistical significance in correlations between modified K-CEBQ score and percentile of weight, height, or BMI. Conclusions Severity of anorexia was correlated to the density of taste buds, especially in children who weighed less than average. The analysis on each single question indicated that children with high taste bud density had poor appetite not because of their inadequate digestive function, but because of their fastidious eating habit. Further study should be focused on finding out which specific aspect of appetite is related to the taste bud density.