Researching Children's Mealtimes by Sally Wiggins
Offering a groundbreaking interdisciplinary guide, this book explores children’s eating practices through the lens of social interaction. It moves beyond individualistic perspectives to uncover the rich, everyday dynamics of mealtimes, where children’s eating is shaped by family, peers, and caregivers. Drawing on 25 years of research, the book provides a comprehensive framework for conducting interactional analyses of children’s eating practices in real-life settings.
Using video-recorded examples from family homes and preschool environments, it illustrates how ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, discursive psychology, and the language socialization approach can uncover the intricate interplay of food, language, and social behaviour. From infants’ first experiences with milk feeding to childrens’ evolving food preferences, the book examines key topics such as weaning, sensory tasting, food likes and dislikes, hunger and satiety, and food refusals. Each chapter combines theoretical insights with practical guidance, offering a rich synthesis of literature reviews, data examples, and suggestions for future research. The book equips readers with the analytical tools to study children’s eating practices and inspires interdisciplinary collaboration by bridging anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and sociology.
With its accessible yet rigorous approach, Researching Children’s Mealtimes is an essential resource for researchers and students across the social sciences. Whether you are a novice researcher or an experienced scholar, this book offers a unique contribution to the study of children’s eating practices and a vital tool for advancing research in this field.
‘In this timely book, Professor Wiggins captures the intricate complexities of children’s interactions with food by entering into “a world that is at once both utterly mundane and unexpectedly extraordinary”By carefully unpacking real-life occurrences of eating-in-interaction in fine detail, a fascinating world of one of the most fundamental activities we engage in from birth is brought to a contemporary context. Crossing disciplinary boundaries between anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and sociology, a rich backdrop of research on children’s eating foregrounds chapters of empirical research from a multidisciplinary and ‘interactional approach’. Each chapter gently guides the reader through unfolding discussions and examples of interactions to reveal carefully crafted and deeply insightful analysis of children’s social eating practices as they naturally occur with others. Readers will enjoy greater insight into how children engage with milk feeding when infants, and are supported to eat independently, experience sensory tasting – including food likes and dislikes - and achieve a sense of fullness (or satiety), all as social activities. This deep dive into children’s eating practices is essential reading for all those interested in children’s social activities and eating interactions – two essential ingredients of life!’
Professor Amanda Bateman,
Department of Education, Birmingham City University, UK.
‘Have you ever wondered about mealtime interactions between children and their families? If so, this book takes the everyday behaviour of children’s social eating and provides an in-depth exploration of an apparently simple act, offering a thoughtful, multidisciplinary account of family mealtimes. Research on the language, psychology, sociology and anthropology of eating together is carefully and critically presented. Then a practical guide is offered to support future research with a plea to include greater cooperation between disciplines. So much can be learned about us as humans from the ways in which we interact during meals. Particularly given the biological imperative to eat set against the interpersonal dynamics of the family unit and the wider sociocultural, political and commercial structures underpinning the food supply. There is no other book which presents interactional research on children’s mealtimes with such clarity, care and precision. Overall, a wonderful resource for placing interactional approaches at the centre of how children eat.’
Marion M Hetherington BSc(Hons), DipEd, DPhil (Oxon)
Professor Emerita, School of Psychology, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Affiliate Professor, School of Nutritional Sciences, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, US
‘This book is an innovative addition to the literature on the myriad aspects of children’s eating. Not only is it a practical manual on the conduct of interactional research; it also serves as a novel basis for interdisciplinary work in a field unduly limited by disciplinary fragmentation. It is thus an invaluable landmark for researchers and students at all levels.’
Anne Murcott
Honorary Professorial Research Associate, SOAS, University of London
Professor Emerita, London South Bank University, UK
‘Children’s mealtimes are a microcosm of the social world, infused with morality, politics, power, pleasure, and negotiation as much as nutrition. In this rich and timely book, Sally Wiggins moves beyond idealised accounts of the family meal to show, with analytical precision, how eating together is collaboratively accomplished in everyday life. Drawing on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, discursive psychology, and language socialisation, she offers both a conceptual reorientation and a practical guide to researching the intricate interplay of food, language, and bodies. This is an indispensable resource for scholars across anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and sociology, and a landmark contribution to the interactional study of children’s eating.’
Alexa Hepburn
Professor Emerita, School of Communication and Information
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Honorary Professor, Department of Communication and Media,
Loughborough University, UK
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781032868738 |
| ISBN 10 | 1032868732 |
| Title | Researching Children's Mealtimes |
| Author | Sally Wiggins |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Year published | 2026-08-31 |
| Number of pages | 180 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |