Some efforts to address this situation, such as pressuring the child to eat a disliked food or threatening punishment for not eating it, tend to exacerbate the problem.

Effective solutions include offering non-food rewards, such as a small sticker, for tasting a new or disliked food, and for parents to model the behavior they want to see by cheerfully eating the new or disliked foods in front of the children.

Exposing someone to a new food increases the chances of liking that food item. However, it is not enough to merely look at a new food. Novel food must be repeatedly tasted in order to increase preference for eating it. It can take as many as 15 tries of a novel food item before a child accepts it. There also appears to be a critical period for lowering later food neophobia in children during the weaning process. The variety of solid foods first exposed to children can lower later food refusal. Some researchers believe that even the food variety of a nursing mother and the consequent variety of flavors in her breastmilk can lead to greater acceptance of novel food items later on in life. Food neophobia does tend to naturally decrease as people age.

Genetics seem to play a role in both food neophobia and general neophobia. Research shows that about two-thirds of the variation in food neophobia is due to genetics. A study done on twin pairs showed an even higher correlation, indicating that genetics does play a factor in food neophobia.

Psychosocial factors can also increase a child's chances of developing food neophobia. Young children carefully watch parental food preferences, and this may produce neophobic tendencies with regard to eating if parents tend to avoid some foods.

Another cause includes being more sensitive than average to bitter tastes, which may be associated with a significant history of middle ear infection or an increased perception of bitter foods, known as a supertaster.

Sometimes food neophobia is more directly caused by an environmental occurrence. For example, with poison-induced neophobia, a food-poisoning experience can lead to people not only avoiding the flavor(s) they associate with creating their illness but also avoiding all novel flavors during the period directly following the poisoning experience. This can be seen as the body’s attempt to prevent any new and risky food items from entering the body.

Besides food poisoning, food neophobia also arises from the person associating a negative experience with new foods, for example suffering from gastroenteritis or other gastrointestinal illnesses after eating undercooked food.

Another environmental factor influencing levels of food neophobia is the current arousal level of the individual. Trying a new food is an arousing experience, and if the person prefers to maintain a lower arousal level in general, then he or she might avoid new foods as a method of managing his or her current arousal level. Also, if people are currently experiencing situations with a lot of novelty and are therefore more aroused, they might be reluctant to try new foods as doing so would increase their arousal level to an uncomfortable level. This example can help explain why Americans visiting a foreign country might be less likely to try a new food item and instead gravitate towards the familiar McDonald’s food.