Initiating complementary feeding: a decision influenced by the child's growth?

International audience; Background and aims: Infant feeding practices are subject to multiple influences. The age of onset of complementary feeding (CF) varies according to many factors such as maternal characteristics (smoking, age, education level, body size, country of birth) or infant characteristics (sex) (Bournez et al., 2017). The aim was to study if, in addition to these factors, age could depend on the child's growth. We have hypothesized that larger children (or heavier / more corpulent ones) would be introduced to CF earlier than "average"-sized children would. Methods: Data from the ELFE cohort (French Longitudinal Study since Childhood) made it possible to describe the age of C…