Background and Aims. A controlling feeding style has been related to obesity amongst young children. Influences on the feeding style of mothers are a novel area of research. Preliminary studies have found maternal emotional health and child temperament may be important factors. Thus, the current study intended to add to the knowledge in this area by investigating these factors and their relationship to maternal feeding style. A further aim was to investigate the reliability of mothers' reports of their feeding style by comparing them to observations. Method. This study used a correlational design with a non-clinical population of mothers and their young children (N= 71). All participants completed measures of maternal mental health, child feeding and child temperament. A subsample of participants (N = 19) were also videoed feeding their child at one mealtime. Results. Mothers scoring higher on a self-report measure of maternal mental health did report a more controlling feeding style. However the relationship between maternal mental health and negative perception of child temperament was only partially supported as was the relationship between negative perception of child temperament and feeding style. Finally no relationship was found between mothers' self-reported feeding style and their observed feeding style. Conclusions. As predicted, a relationship was found between maternal mental health and reported controlling feeding style, although the relationship between child temperament and feeding style warrants further exploration. A relationship was not found between mothers reported and observed feeding style however the small sample size must be acknowledged when interpreting this result. The findings of this study support the importance of recognising maternal mental health difficulties and the impact they may have on the mother- child feeding relationship. However, further research is needed, in particular with larger clinical populations to further explore influences on the mother-child feeding relationship.

L’alimentation infantile est très encadrée par les instances médicales. Elle constitue donc un point d’observation privilégié de la médicalisation du quotidien et des conditions de diffusion des cultures savantes. Afin d’expliciter les déterminants sociaux de l’alimentation infantile, deux ensembles de données sont mobilisés : d’une part, un corpus documentaire, composé d’articles scientifiques, de publications à destination des parents et des échanges tenus sur un forum en ligne consacré à la puériculture, d’autre part, les données de l’Étude longitudinale française depuis l’enfance. Cette enquête aborde les thématiques du développement, de la santé et de l’alimentation d’un échantillon d’environ 18300 nourrissons, elle renseigne également le détail des caractéristiques sociodémographiques des parents. La première partie de la thèse est consacrée aux conditions de production et de diffusion des recommandations médicales en matière d’alimentation infantile. Nous montrons que, d’une part, les luttes pour le monopole de l’autorité scientifique à l’intérieur de l’espace de la recherche en nutrition pédiatrique, d’autre part, les demandes particulières des pouvoirs publics et des industriels adressées aux experts de l’alimentation infantile, révèlent l’incertitude et la variabilité des recommandations médicales en matière d’alimentation infantile. La réception par les parents de ces recommandations peut alors prendre la forme d’une appropriation des recommandations dominantes, d’une appropriation des recommandations dominées considérées comme mieux actualisées ou d’une mise à distance, parfois très critique, des recommandations médicales voire de la résistance au principe même d’une puériculture médicalisée. La deuxième partie montre que la conformité aux recommandations médicales de l’alimentation des nourrissons est fonction de l’interaction entre le niveau de diplôme des mères et les conditions de leur socialisation au maternage (notamment, leurs pratiques de recherche d’information en matière de diversification alimentaire). Ainsi, la réception de la puériculture médicalisée apparaît dépendante autant du rapport entretenu, par les parents, à la médecine comme système abstrait que du rapport qu’ils entretiennent aux représentants de ce système. Ces rapports étant fonction de l’expérience scolaire des parents. Dans une troisième partie, nous montrons que les répertoires alimentaires maternels ont un effet propre ainsi qu’un effet conditionné aux caractéristiques sociales des mères sur l’alimentation des enfants durant leur première année. / Medical instances strongly control infant feeding. Then parental feeding practices are a means of observing medicalization of everyday life and diffusion of science-based practices. In order to explain the social determinants of parental feeding practices, two sets of data are used: a corpus of documents composed of scientific articles, publications aimed at parents and conversations held on an online forum that concerns childcare and, on the other hand, the French longitudinal study from childhood. This study gathers information on 18300 infants. The study broaches questions of infant development, health and feeding. It also gives details on parents’ socio-demographic characteristics. The first part of this thesis is confined to conditions of production and diffusion of medical recommendations concerning infant feeding. We demonstrate that, firstly the struggle for the monopoly on scientific authority within the field of research in pediatric nutrition and secondly the specific demands of public authorities and industries transferred to experts of infant nutrition, reveals the uncertainty and the variations of the medical recommendations concerning infant nutrition. Parents receptiveness of those medical recommendations can take the form of an appropriation of the mainstream recommendations, an assimilation of minor recommendations considered as the most up to date, or a distancing, sometimes very critical, of the medical recommendations, or even more the resistance to the very idea of medicalised parental practices. The second part shows that the conformity to medical recommendations of infant feeding is a product of the interaction between mothers’ education levels and the conditions of their socialisation to maternity (in particular their methods of researching information on complementary feeding). Therefore, the receptiveness of medicalised childcare appears to be dependent as on the relationship between the parents and medicine, as an abstract system, as on the relationship between parents and representatives of that system. These relationships are a product of the educational experience of the parents. In the third part, we demonstrate that the mother’s feeding repertoires have a proper effect, and an effect conditioned by parents' social characteristics, on infant feeding during their first year.