Towards a Theory of “Food Care”: A Review of Health Literature Examining the Processes of Caring for the Food Needs of School-Aged Children

Pediatric health research often emphasizes the importance of dietary intake for children's growth and development. Yet, little research has systematically examined how broader processes related to caring for school-aged children's food needs are conceptualized in health research. This scoping review critically summarizes literature pertaining to "food care" for school-aged children, a concept proposed here to encapsulate "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." Ovid Medline and PsycINFO databases were searched for studies of school-aged children that examined food care in any form. Studies were screened, reviewed, and coded, and descriptions of "food care" were summarized. Findings were integrated with existing concepts of care, highlighting gaps and opportunities for improving pediatric nutrition research. Parental practices were the most commonly reported measures related to food care, including coercive control (such as food restriction, monitoring, and pressure to eat), food-related teasing, role modeling or encouraging healthy eating, and mealtime interactions. Most studies examined "poor" food care practices and outcomes framed as harmful, including feeding challenges, disordered eating, excess weight, or poor mental health. Studies seldom examined benefits of recognizing, or actively attending to, children's food needs and rarely acknowledged food system policies; social determinants of health; societal, institutional, community-level or intergenerational forms of food care; or the roles that children themselves play in caring for their own food needs or those of others. Health research related to the food care of children has focused largely on negative parental practices and their consequences. This review highlights opportunities to consider insights from interdisciplinary social science scholarship regarding community, cultural, institutional, and systemic food care processes and potential benefits for pediatric health research and practice. A conceptual framework of food care is proposed to inform future research.