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. 2021 Jul 26;8(8):638.
doi: 10.3390/children8080638.

Complementary Feeding in Italy: From Tradition to Innovation

Patrizia Alvisi  1 , Marco Congiu  2 , Monica Ficara  3 , Patrizia De Gregorio  4 , Roberto Ghio  5 , Enzo Spisni  6 , Pietro Di Saverio  4 , Flavio Labriola  1 , Doriana Lacorte  7 , Paolo Lionetti  8
Affiliations

Complementary Feeding in Italy: From Tradition to Innovation

Patrizia Alvisi et al. Children (Basel). .

Abstract

Complementary feeding (CF) is a pivotal phase of the individual's growth, during which children develops their future dietary habits. To date, only few studies investigated and compared weaning modalities between different geographical areas. The aim of this article is to describe the current Italian practice for CF in healthy term infants among different areas (North, Center, South) of Italy. Two different multiple-choice questionnaires were produced and sent to 665 Italian primary care pediatricians (PCP) and 2023 families with children under 1 year of age. As emerged from our investigation, in Italy CF is usually started between the 5th and 6th month of life. The preferred approach (chosen by 77% of families) involves the use of home-cooked liquid or semi-liquid ailments, or industrial baby foods. A new CF modality is emerging, consisting of traditional complementary foods with adult food tastings (10% of families). Approximately 91% of pediatricians give written dietary suggestions, and 83% of families follow their advice. We found significantly divergent weaning habits among different areas of Italy. PCP have a key role in guiding parents during the introduction of new foods in their infant's diet and should take this as an opportunity to educate the whole family to healthy dietary habits.

Keywords: Italian regions; baby-led weaning; complementary feeding; food tastings; personalized nutrition; weaning practice.

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Conflict of interest statement

P.A. received conference fees from Bioprojet Sandoz. P.L. received conference fees from Abbvie, Pfizer, Sandoz, Nestlè-Nutricia and Janssen. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Division of Italy in geographical areas: North (dark blue), Center (blue) and South (light blue).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of PCPs (numbers showed on the right) and families (on the left) interviewed across Italian regions (North, Center and South).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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