Co-eating: A new theoretical perspective on children's eating practices
Eating together is one of the first social activities that infants engage in and yet very little is known about the details of children's eating practices in real-life settings. The field of eating research has been hampered by a paradigm that prioritises individual cognitions and behaviour, and methods that have restricted our understanding of eating to that which fit into an experimental framework. This sabbatical project will advance this field by developing an alternative theoretical framework that places interaction and social practices at the centre of eating practices. The overarching purpose is to advance the field of children's eating practices both theoretically and methodologically, and to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration in a field that has been hampered by disciplinary fragmentation. The sabbatical period will be used to complete remaining analysis of an existing data corpus and write a monograph that synthesises this body of work and proposes a new theoretical perspective on children's eating practices. The two research visits will enable analyses of the data in important new directions and lay the foundations for an emerging network of researchers in eating interactions.
Final report
Projects most important results and publications
The sabbatical year was used to dedicate time and resources to advancing the development of research into children’s eating practices in everyday social settings, contributing to our understanding of how ‘eating together’ or commensality practices can be understood within an interactional framework. The research completed includes empirical analyses of co-eating encounters during children’s mealtimes and of how issues such as food refusal can be re-framed and analysed as resistance within social interaction. Co-eating encounters are those moments in which participants within a shared interactional space maintain joint attention on one or the other’s eating practices. These are distinct from other encounters in that they have implications for who can invoke epistemic or deontic authority over the other person: who can make claims about interoceptive states, for instance, or make decisions over what another person can or should eat.
The most substantial work during the sabbatical year has been the development and writing of a monograph on researching children’s mealtimes, due to be published by Routledge in 2026. This book consolidates around twenty-five years of research into a research manual, aimed at a multidisciplinary audience, to conduct interactional, video-based research into how children eat in everyday situations. The research trips during the sabbatical and collaborative work with colleagues in the UK and the Netherlands were vital in bringing this work to fruition.
In addition to the book, the sabbatical has enabled the establishment of a new international network of researchers across the disciplines of psychology, linguistics, education, geography, and anthropology. This network of researchers provides detailed and empirical analyses of human sociality during eating practices across the lifespan, from the earliest moments of milk feeding to assisted eating in older adults with dementia. Other publications have arisen from the sabbatical, including the development of papers on co-eating encounters (Wiggins, forthcoming), food refusal (Wiggins & Huma, forthcoming), and disgust (Wiggins & Keevallik, in press), and book chapters that assimilate and develop previous work (Wiggins, in press 2026a,b).
In addition to the publications
The project has enabled the development of more concrete research collaborations with colleagues in the UK and the Netherlands, as well as through the establishment of an international network of researchers on eating interactions. Extended periods of time in other academic settings has enabled the emergence of more progressive and expansive research ideas that would not have been possible without the benefit of the sabbatical year. In addition to the publications, the sabbatical year thus enabled the following concrete results:
• The development of new insights into the nature of interactional resistance and food refusal in children
• New insights into the role of disgust at specific moments during mealtimes and their role in refusing food
• The establishment of an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers working on eating in social interaction (EatSiN), which already includes 30 researchers from 9 countries across Europe and Australia. See rolsi.net for a blog post on the network.
• Invited departmental presentations at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Leeds.
• An invited plenary presentation at the annual Conversation Analysis Day at Loughborough University.
New research questions
The sabbatical year has resulted in many new research questions and avenues for collaboration coming to the fore, pertaining to issues such as how co-eating encounters emerge as fluid states within social interaction, how the boundaries between eating and not eating can be identified, and how children’s interoceptive states (e.g. hunger, satiety) are evidenced and become consequential within everyday mealtimes. Future avenues of research involve increased collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, such as how an analysis of eating interactions can contribute to the reduction of food waste and sustainable eating practices, as well as increasing healthy eating across the lifespan. The newly established eating in social interaction network also provides emerging opportunities for researchers to work on related interests across different datasets.
The sabbatical year was used to dedicate time and resources to advancing the development of research into children’s eating practices in everyday social settings, contributing to our understanding of how ‘eating together’ or commensality practices can be understood within an interactional framework. The research completed includes empirical analyses of co-eating encounters during children’s mealtimes and of how issues such as food refusal can be re-framed and analysed as resistance within social interaction. Co-eating encounters are those moments in which participants within a shared interactional space maintain joint attention on one or the other’s eating practices. These are distinct from other encounters in that they have implications for who can invoke epistemic or deontic authority over the other person: who can make claims about interoceptive states, for instance, or make decisions over what another person can or should eat.
The most substantial work during the sabbatical year has been the development and writing of a monograph on researching children’s mealtimes, due to be published by Routledge in 2026. This book consolidates around twenty-five years of research into a research manual, aimed at a multidisciplinary audience, to conduct interactional, video-based research into how children eat in everyday situations. The research trips during the sabbatical and collaborative work with colleagues in the UK and the Netherlands were vital in bringing this work to fruition.
In addition to the book, the sabbatical has enabled the establishment of a new international network of researchers across the disciplines of psychology, linguistics, education, geography, and anthropology. This network of researchers provides detailed and empirical analyses of human sociality during eating practices across the lifespan, from the earliest moments of milk feeding to assisted eating in older adults with dementia. Other publications have arisen from the sabbatical, including the development of papers on co-eating encounters (Wiggins, forthcoming), food refusal (Wiggins & Huma, forthcoming), and disgust (Wiggins & Keevallik, in press), and book chapters that assimilate and develop previous work (Wiggins, in press 2026a,b).
In addition to the publications
The project has enabled the development of more concrete research collaborations with colleagues in the UK and the Netherlands, as well as through the establishment of an international network of researchers on eating interactions. Extended periods of time in other academic settings has enabled the emergence of more progressive and expansive research ideas that would not have been possible without the benefit of the sabbatical year. In addition to the publications, the sabbatical year thus enabled the following concrete results:
• The development of new insights into the nature of interactional resistance and food refusal in children
• New insights into the role of disgust at specific moments during mealtimes and their role in refusing food
• The establishment of an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers working on eating in social interaction (EatSiN), which already includes 30 researchers from 9 countries across Europe and Australia. See rolsi.net for a blog post on the network.
• Invited departmental presentations at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Leeds.
• An invited plenary presentation at the annual Conversation Analysis Day at Loughborough University.
New research questions
The sabbatical year has resulted in many new research questions and avenues for collaboration coming to the fore, pertaining to issues such as how co-eating encounters emerge as fluid states within social interaction, how the boundaries between eating and not eating can be identified, and how children’s interoceptive states (e.g. hunger, satiety) are evidenced and become consequential within everyday mealtimes. Future avenues of research involve increased collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, such as how an analysis of eating interactions can contribute to the reduction of food waste and sustainable eating practices, as well as increasing healthy eating across the lifespan. The newly established eating in social interaction network also provides emerging opportunities for researchers to work on related interests across different datasets.