Are maternal eating demonstrations associated with infant food acceptance? An observational study of solid food introduction in infancy

Research with infants highlights an early capacity to learn from social partners, particularly about concepts that would be difficult to learn independently. However, scant literature examines social learning (such as the impact of demonstrations) on infants' acceptance of foods, even though the timeline of solid food introduction (recommended to start at age 6 months) aligns with emerging capacities for infant social learning, making solid foods an ecologically valid category of unfamiliar stimuli. The present research examines whether infants eat more food at 6 (n = 103), 9 (n = 104), and 12 (n = 101) months when their mothers demonstrate eating and the factors that predict maternal eating demonstrations. Although the frequency of maternal eating demonstrations was positively associated with infant bites, we observed low levels of maternal eating demonstrations (fewer than 30% of mothers demonstrated eating at each infant age). Infants tended to eat more of familiar versus unfamiliar foods, yet mothers did not differ in their demonstrations of eating familiar versus unfamiliar foods. Mothers were more likely to demonstrate eating foods when the observations took place during shared meals (rather than individual infant feedings) and when feeding older infants, with more demonstrations occurring at the 9- and 12-month age points compared to the 6-month age point. Eating demonstrations are discussed as a potential target for intervention deserving further study given that we rarely observed spontaneous eating demonstrations in this study.