Child-Consumer Food Socialization: Why Grandparents Matter

International audienceThis paper aims at investigating the potential role of grandparents as food socialization agents for their grandchildren. Reviewing and organizing existing literature in sociology, psychology and marketing, we highlight the strong presence of contemporary grandparents in the everyday life of their grandchildren, which creates an occasion for the socialization process to occur during shared meals or activities such as cooking or gardening; we show that to some individuals, being a grandparent is central in their lives and can be a cause worth defending. We highlight the importance of grandparents as resource persons for the entire family system, including the parents, who can be relieved from stress by the involvement of the elderly with their children. We then suggest that some dimensions of the grandparental role (such as “historian”, or “reinvolvement with personal past”) may favour the transmission of different meanings of food to children, such as those related to the history of the family. Last, we show that grandparent-grandchild interactions can create strong emotions for both generations, and that specific belongings such as table or kitchen objects can become the symbols of these shared moments.Exploring this socialization role empirically with 7 to 12 year-old children and some members of their family, we highlight that children can discover new types of food with their grandparents, such as home-made meals, regional dishes as well as family recipes. We identify the central role of pleasure and rituals in their interactions. Our results are then discussed to provide directions for future research