Young Children’s mealtimes and eating practices in early childhood education and care: A scoping review of 30 years of research from 1990 to 2020

Abstract

Young children’s eating practices and mealtimes within early childhood education and care have attracted considerable attention over the past 30 years, with an increasing focus on nutrition and family-style meals. Research in this field is typically conducted in parallel strands that would benefit from an overview perspective and critical discussion. This article addresses that need, reviewing international research from 166 empirical papers published between January 1990 to December 2020. A scoping literature review was used to inductively identify three core areas of research: i) factors influencing children’s eating practices, ii) teacher’s and children’s perspectives on mealtimes, and iii) situated meal practices. Key trends included a focus on repeated exposure, modeling behavior, teachers’ feeding practices, rules and norms vs. playfulness, and participation in the meal as event. Future research could work across disciplinary boundaries and combine a focus on nutritional concerns with an examination of the multimodal interaction within the mealtimes.