Disgust at the Table: The Sequential Location and Production of Young Children's Food Disgust Expressions in the Home and Preschool

Children's understanding of disgust has been investigated experimentally from an individual perspective, but little is known about their expressions of disgust in everyday settings. Disgust has also been associated with, but not directly examined within, food refusal during mealtimes. Using a discursive psychological analysis of food disgust expressions in the home and preschool, this article examines how disgust becomes interactionally relevant at key moments within eating trajectories during everyday mealtimes. Data are taken from two corpora of video-recorded meals in Scotland (homes) and Sweden (preschool) with a focus on expressions such as bleurgh or ugh. The analyses evidence the production of children's disgust expressions at transitional moments during the meal, when food is brought to the table, to the plate, or to the mouth. The implications of the findings for work on disgust expressions and children's refusal of food during eating trajectories are discussed.