Although vegetables provide many beneficial nutrients and have been shown to help reduce the risk of dietary related chronic diseases, children in the United States are not meeting the national recommendations of vegetable servings. The overall goal of this research was to study the relationship between children’s vegetable acceptance and the following children’s characteristics: food neophobia (FN), vegetable neophobia (VN), picky eating (PE), 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) sensitivity, Mouth Behavior (MB). The specific objectives were to: (1) develop a novel method for evaluating children’s MB, (2) assess the FN, VN, PE, PROP sensitivity, and MB levels in children in San Luis Obispo County, (3) examine the relationship between FN, VN, PE, PROP sensitivity, and MB, (4) determine exposure and willingness to try familiar and unfamiliar vegetables of the two levels of each of the children’s characteristics, (5) to determine acceptability of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables of each level of each of the children’s characteristics, and (6) determine if the preference between two levels of each children’s characteristic differed. Children’s acceptability of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables was conducted with 43 child and parent pairs. Parents completed five questionnaires: demographics, the Child Food Neophobic Scale, the Fruit and Vegetable Neophobia Instrument (vegetable subscale), the Child-Feeding Questionnaire (pickiness subscale), and the JBMB® typing tool. Children participated in consumer acceptance testing of red carrots (stick, sliver, and puree) and broccoli (floret, sliver, and puree). Sensory attributes were measured using a 5-point facial hedonic scale. The children’s PROP sensitivity was determined by having the children place a control taste strip on their tongue for approximately ten seconds and report what they tasted. This procedure was repeated with a PROP taste strip. The children’s MB was determined through a guided discussion about their eating behaviors and food preferences with their parents. Of the children in the study, there were 46.51% FN, 32.56% PE, 34.8% PROP sensitive, 44.19% VN, 60.47% chewers, 27.91% crunchers, 6.98% smooshers, and 4.65% suckers. From likelihood ratio chi-square analysis, the following characteristics were related: FN and VN (p This study indicates there are possible trends between FN, PE, MB, and vegetable acceptance. Another trend that appeared was that the sensory attributes of the non-bitter, unfamiliar red carrots were often rated higher than the sensory attributes of the bitter, familiar broccoli. It may be possible to determine child’s MB through discussions with the child and their parent. In conclusion, knowledge of a children’s MB and understanding how their eating behaviors are associated with the acceptability of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables served in different product forms may be able to help increase children’s vegetable consumption.

This dissertation offers two essays on the engendering and the consequences of employee brand behavior. The first essay addresses the impact of employee brand behavior on customer experience in the retail environment. Retailers, with some exceptions, paid relatively little attention to the role that employees play in the experience they provide to their customers. While there seems to be a general consensus regarding both the importance of customer experience and the role of employees in delivering it, there has been no study attempting to measure the impact front-line employees have on the overall customer experience process from the consumer point-of-view. In essay two the antecedents that make up the customer experience construct are explored through the usage of a previously tested model with the addition of two new components: the employee in-role brand-building behavior construct and the expansion of the word-of-mouth construct to include social media word-of-mouth. The second essay complements essay one by focusing on the importance of employee branding behavior and examining its two variants: in-role and extra-role brand-building behavior. Both behaviors are engendered within the firm but companies are still struggling to differentiate between the two. The distinction between the two types is important because when developed correctly these behaviors can help companies build a competitive advantage. Since the differentiation gap between companies nowadays continues to shrink, companies must strive to develop a unique competitive advantage that cannot be easily copied by their rivals. The tailoring of such a specific set of brand oriented behaviors to be performed by employees is one potential solution to this challenge. By directing the behavior of employees that come into direct contact with customers, a firm has a unique opportunity to align all its branding promotional initiatives with those of its representatives in the front lines resulting in a more consistent customer experience.

<p>  </p> <p>Pacheco, Kathryn Nichole. M.S. Purdue University, December 2022. Snacking Interventions Differentially Influence Saliva, Salivary Alpha Amylase Activity, and Sensation. Major Professor Dr. Cordelia A. Running.</p> <p>Human saliva contains the enzyme alpha amylase, which greatly influences many facets of human health such as digestion, absorption of nutrients, and the sensory perception of certain foods. However, the complex relationships between chewing behavior, food texture preference, and salivary amylase require further investigation. In this study, we aim to observe salivary alpha amylase through a simple assay using pudding, and to examine whether salivary amylase activity relates to diet, the sensory properties of starchy foods, or mouth behavior. We hypothesized that the pudding/salivary amylase activity assay would show more activity (less pudding remaining) 1) at the end of the high dietary starch intervention week, with little or no change from baseline to the end of the low dietary starch intervention week and 2) for people with greater baseline starch consumption compared to less baseline starch consumption. A counter-balanced, crossover design was implemented for the study. 34 participants (11 Men, 23 Women, 0 Other) completed study tasks, consisting of a 3-day dietary recall, 2 separate weeks of dietary intervention consisting of high starch or low starch snacks, and 4 research visits. These research visits included participant taste and smell acuity assessments, sensory ratings of the study foods, a mouth behavior typing test, and our salivary amylase activity assay that determined flow rate of a mixture of participant saliva and starch-containing ready-to-eat pudding. After our higher and lower starch snack interventions, we saw minimal evidence of changes to salivary amylase activity in our assay; the only trend we observed was opposite our expectation (less amylase activity after the low starch intervention). However, we did observe mouth behavior grouping tended to associate with sensory ratings that validate the premise of the mouth behavior typing tool we utilized. Ultimately, more work on the consistency and usefulness of the salivary amylase activity assay will need to be conducted if it is to be utilized for research purposes, but our data do help validate the concept that different people prefer foods due to their preferred methods of orally manipulating foods. r.  </p>