What children consume in their early years – breast or formula milk, organic or ‘junk’ food – is often a topic of heated public debate. Childhood eating has become powerfully linked in the social and political imagination to wider problems such as obesity, cancers and even intellectual development and emotional health. Such problems are now routinely described in catastrophic terms. These days, questioning the validity of crusades to shake up apparently complacent adults and compel them to change the dietary habits of the young, risks widespread opprobrium.

It was this aspect of parenting culture that gave rise to the idea for a Centre for Parenting Culture Studies.  The event ‘Feeding babies and Parenting Culture’ was held at the University of Kent in May 2023, marking 20 years since our initial research on this topic. Watch recordings from the day here.

Follow these links for more.

• More about our past work on feeding babies led by Charlotte Faircloth and Ellie Lee
• Edited Collection details: Feeding Children Inside and Outside the Home

Read on

Infant feeding and the problems of policy

Breast-Feeding Advocacy, Risk Society and Health Moralism: A Decade’s Scholarship

Health, morality, and infant feeding: British mothers’ experiences of formula milk use in the early weeks 

‘If they want to risk the health and well-being of their child, that’s up to them’: Long-term breastfeeding, risk and maternal identity 

‘It feels right in my heart’: affective accountability in narratives of attachment.

What science says is best: Parenting practices, scientific authority and maternal identity