SynthesisThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2020
Childhood fussy/picky eating behaviours: a systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies.
Synthesis in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 122 citations in OpenAlex.
- Informal caregivers' experiences of feeding children with cancer: a systematic review of qualitative evidence.JBI evidence synthesis · 2026Pooled it
- FEEDSETUP: feeding difficulties spectrum evaluation and treatment up-to-date proposal.Jornal de pediatria · 2026Review
- "A few more bites?": Manifestation of pressure-to-eat in child care.Nutrition & dietetics : the journal of the Dietitians Association of Australia · 2026Article
- Article
- "It's been a very, very long and emotional journey, and the impact is huge": a reflexive thematic analysis exploring the experiences of parents of children and young people with ARFID.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Rethinking fussiness in commercial food contexts.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Examining the Relationship Between Early Feeding Difficulties and Language Development: A Longitudinal Study.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Parental insights about supports for children with disabilities who are restricted eaters.Australian occupational therapy journal · 2026Article
- The association of baby-led weaning and picky eating in children aged 2-5 years.Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition · 2026Article
- Applying Social Cognitive Theory to Understand Perspectives on Child Feeding Practices of Thai Female Caregivers With Young Children With Stunting.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Article
- Early Childhood Anxiety and Maternal Factors: Associations with State and Trait Anxiety in a Greek Cohort of Preschoolers.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A correlational study of adult picky eating: proposing a developmental model.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- School-age somatic, internalizing, attention, and social difficulties in moderate anthropometric undernutrition: a primary-care case-control study.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- Exploring caregiver experiences of raising a child with feeding difficulties: a qualitative study.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- "It's about survival, love and care"-parents' experiences of living with a child with ARFID: a Swedish interview study.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- Review
- The Feeding-swallowing Impact Survey: Reference Values from a UK Sample of Parents of Children Without a Known or Suspected Feeding Disorder.Dysphagia · 2025Article
- Longitudinal associations between food fussiness and parental feeding behaviors in Chinese children: between- and within-person effects.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Article
- Neural responsivity to food cues varies with food fussiness in adolescents.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Evaluation of the reliability and validity of a Caregivers' Complementary Feeding Practice Scale (CCFPS) for children aged 6-23 months in urban areas of China.Journal of global health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Fussy/picky eating behaviours are common across childhood. Recent reviews of the fussy eating literature focus on quantitative research and do not adequately account for families' subjective experiences, perceptions and practices. This review aims to synthesise the increasing volume of qualitative work on fussy eating. A systematic search of relevant databases was carried out. Studies were included if they were qualitative, published since 2008, with a primary focus on families' experiences, perceptions and practices regarding fussy eating, food neophobia, or food refusal in children (aged one to young adult). Studies with clinical samples, or relating to children under one year were excluded. Ten studies were eligible for this review and were synthesised using meta-ethnography (developed by Noblit and Hare). This review provides a comprehensive description and definition of fussy eating behaviours. A conceptual model of the family experience of fussy eating was developed, illustrating relationships between child characteristics (including fussy eating behaviours), parent feeding beliefs, parent feeding practices, mealtime emotions and parent awareness of food preference development. Our synthesis identified two ways in which fussy eating relates to mealtime emotions (directly and via parent feeding practices) and three distinct categories of parent beliefs that relate to fussy eating (self-efficacy, attributions and beliefs about hunger regulation). The model proposes pathways which could be explored further in future qualitative and quantitative studies, and suggests that parent beliefs, emotions, and awareness should be targeted alongside parent feeding practices to increase effectiveness of interventions. The majority of studies included in this review focus on pre-school children and all report the parent perspective. Further research is required to understand the child's perspective, and experiences of fussy eating in later childhood. PROSPERO Registration: CRD42017055943.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.