The Broader Village Behind Children's Food Care
If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to care for children’s food needs. While family caregivers play a central role in shaping children’s health and nutrition outcomes, the broader "village" of policymakers, governments, health and education systems, social services, and civil-society groups also plays a crucial part. These entities contribute to creating the conditions that support healthy eating habits and overall well-being for children.
Academic research has provided valuable insights into improving health policies, medical treatments, and approaches for preventing food- and eating-related problems in children. However, many studies tend to focus on what parents are doing wrong rather than examining the social conditions and resources that families need to improve their children’s nutrition. This narrow perspective overlooks the complex interplay of factors that influence food care.
Reimagining Food Care
As researchers and dietitians specializing in food and nutrition, we have reviewed a wide range of studies on childhood nutrition and family food practices. In our recent work, we analyzed leading medical research databases to understand how health researchers study the processes involved in caring for school-aged children’s food and nutrition needs. We found that while there is a wealth of information about what children eat, risk factors for sub-optimal diets, and how parents feed their kids, much of the research misses the most important elements of food care.
We proposed a new concept called “food care,” which we define as “the processes of feeling concern or interest about food, or taking action to provide food necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, or protection of oneself or someone else.” This framework includes not only the physical act of feeding but also the emotional, cognitive, and physical work involved in nourishing children.
Despite this, many studies continue to ignore the social and political factors that shape food care. These issues are well established in other fields of social science, yet health research often overlooks them.
Blaming Parents: A Persistent Trend
Health research about children’s food care often centers on the family, particularly parents’ food practices and household conditions. While this field is evolving, many studies describe children’s eating and nutrition challenges as stemming from parental shortcomings. This approach frequently focuses on how parental actions increase risks of feeding problems, disordered eating, excess weight, or poor mental health.
In the 20 studies we analyzed, the four main categories of food care included:
- Caregivers' feeding practices
- Parents' actions focused on children's body size or weight
- Ways that parents cultivate healthy eating
- Mealtime interactions
Even when the effects of these actions were small or had little meaningful impact, research conclusions often still blamed parents. This parent-blaming trend persists despite the fact that parents rarely receive recognition for the efforts they make to build healthy relationships, connections, trust, or family traditions through food.
Assumptions in Research
Researchers today operate within an era where "intensive parenting" is the cultural norm. This ideology emphasizes emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and expert-guided approaches to parenting. While health studies seldom address these assumptions, they often seep into recommendations that place the burden of responsibility on parents—particularly mothers—to ensure children’s health outcomes.
Such ideas can lead to blaming parents for outcomes that may be out of their control, clinically irrelevant, or benign. They also overlook the benefits of food care, including the often invisible work of feeding a family.
This trend echoes earlier critiques from psychology, such as those by Paula Caplan, who highlighted the long history of blaming mothers for their children’s psychological problems.
What Is Needed for Quality Food Care?
Medical research contributes to improved pediatric nutrition policies and clinical practice. However, studies on feeding school-aged children remain disconnected from the complex realities of family life and the political forces that shape it.
The sample of studies we analyzed largely ignored key ingredients needed for quality food care, such as:
- Affording and accessing nutritious food
- Safe food storage and preparation facilities
- Resources, time, childcare, and available school food programs
- Food literacy knowledge and skills
- Neighborhood food environments
- Institutional and social policies that foster food care
These topics are often mentioned on the fringes of research, but they are well-studied in sociology, political science, and food studies. It is time for medical researchers to pay closer attention to these factors and the assumptions that underpin their work.
Moving Forward
Health researchers can progress by reflecting more actively on their own assumptions about gender roles, good parenting, healthy eating, and idealized family meals. These understandings influence how we measure and talk about feeding children.
In the 1980s, family food researcher Marjorie DeVault emphasized the importance of naming and studying the daily work of feeding families. Despite this, there remains much work to be done to shift the narrative around food care and recognize the efforts parents already make.