Eating and Drinking in Childhood

Abstract

This chapter describes the development of eating and drinking in typically developing children up to the end of school age. Together with physiological and cognitive development, children’s eating behavior undergoes major evolutions. During the early period when eating is essential to sustain growth, children eat easily and at the onset of complementary feeding discover the foods of their future diet which are marked by distinct tastes, flavors, and textures from the milk they had received before. Then they undergo a period when they may become picky and/or neophobic, which may last until school age. For this reason, eating and drinking will first be described in infancy, before the onset of food neophobia (from birth to 2-3 years), during the preschool years (from 2-3 years to 6 years), and right after this period, in school-aged children (from 7 years until 11 years). The mysteries of (pre)adolescent eating and drinking will not be covered in this chapter. Then, within each section, the following aspects will be covered: sensory capacities, likes and dislikes, attitudes and thinking, and role of the environment, including the family environment.