Young eater's diet : a complex situation making difficult the match with classical growth development models

International audienceINTRODUCTION: Beyond nutrition, food has hedonic, social and cultural functions. Few studies exist on the socio-cultural dimensions of French babies’ feeding practices. OBJECTIVES: Analyse the material dimension of young children’s eating habits (industrialised or "homemade", textures, portion size, quantity of nutrients, etc.), along with the different children’s phases of development and socialization; explore the immaterial dimension by understanding parental activities around children's food as the result of a triple process (material, cognitive, emotional); capture the social norms and the cognitive discrepancies between norms and practices. METHOD: A qualitative study was performed to understand eating practices and representations related to 0 to 3 year old babies. Semi-directive interviews (54 parents) were performed in two French towns and their surrounding areas. Each family was interviewed twice to go into discussions in depth and comeback on dimensions identified as contradictory after the first interview. Additionally, parents were asked to take pictures in between the two interviews in order to prompt discussion and exchange during the second interview. A netnography was added to go into lines of research in depth. RESULTS: This study brings elements on 1) children’s eating practices and the link with children’s nutritional and psychosocial needs, 2) caregivers’ eating practices and their impact on children’s co-socialization and co-education dynamics. Results show that material, cognitive and emotional burdens weigh unequally on parents, leading to the development of organisational adaptive strategies (delegation, ritualization, routinization) to reduce daily dietary tasks but without necessarily being compatible with children’s health, sensory awakening and masticatory development. CONCLUSIONS: This socio-anthropological study allows considering 0 to 3 year old baby’s feeding practices beyond classical theoretical growth development models and highlights the importance of young eaters’ socialization and its consequences. It demonstrates that young eaters are plural with complex eating habits requiring constant re-adjustments from their caregivers