How assisted eating becomes a caring practice in institutional settings: Embodied gestures and stages of assisted eating

Abstract

Assisted eating is a basic caring practice and the means through which many individuals receive adequate nutrition. Research in this area has noted the challenges of helping others to eat while upholding their independence, though has yet to explicate how this caring practice is achieved in detail and across the lifespan. This paper provides an empirical analysis of assisted eating episodes in two different institutions, detailing the processes through which eating is collaboratively achieved between two persons. Data are video-recorded episodes of infants during preschool lunches and care home meals for adults with dementia, both located in Sweden. Using EMCA's multimodal interaction analysis, three core stages of assisted eating and their underpinning embodied practices were identified: (1) establishing joint attention, (2) offering the food, and (3) transferring food into the mouth. The first stage is particularly crucial in establishing the activity as a collaborative process. The analysis details the interactional practices through which assisted eating becomes a joint accomplishment using a range of multimodal features such as eye gaze, hand gestures, and vocalisations. The paper thus demonstrates how assisted eating becomes a caring practice through the active participation of both caregiver and cared-for person, according to their needs. The analysis has implications not only for professional caring work in institutional settings but also for the detailed analysis of eating as an embodied activity.