Modifying the texture of foods for infants and young children

The first section of this chapter describes the evolutions in oral physiology (anatomical motor components, oral motor skills and feeding skills) in healthy children (< 3 years). The second section describes how each type of texture is accepted at each oral physiology stage, and how exposures to textures impact oral physiology development and acceptability of textures. The third section shows how the need to modify food texture for infant foods is addressed, through national regulations or recommendations from public health bodies, and describes practices of texture modification, based on national surveys and case reports (including baby-led weaning). The chapter is closed by a commentary o…

Assessing children’s food texture acceptance between the beginning of complementary feeding and the age of 36 months old: a French survey

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Exposition et acceptabilité des textures lors de la période de diversification alimentaire

Food texture acceptance during infancy: a longitudinal study

Texture is an important dimension of food acceptance in infancy but few works investigated its role. The present objectives were to describe the evolution of food texture acceptance and feeding skills in 6 to 18-mo-old. Two groups of healthy children participated in this study conducted at the laboratory at 6, 8, 10mo (n=24) and at 12, 15 and 18mo (n=25). They were offered foods with different textures (smooth and rough purees, cooked and sticky pieces, raw and hard foods) at an earlier age than current practices in France. Infants' acceptance (the ability to process and swallow a food) and feeding skills (sucking and chewing) were expressed as probabilities (P). At 6mo, pureed textures wer…

L'efficacité masticatoire du jeune enfant permet-elle d'expliquer l'acceptabilité des aliments solides pendant la période de diversification alimentaire ?