Adequate Food, Adequate Parenting? Critical Insights on Family Law (and Justice) and Parenthood Through Food

Abstract

The links between food, families and the law seem to be particularly strong in what concerns dietary issues, parental food choices and the best interests of the child. In such a framework, I will examine some recent decisions that have been pronounced by Italian courts having to decide disputes involving such questions in relation to alternative food choices. My claim, drawing on Canguilhem, is that some of these decisions seem to point towards an imposition to normalise food practices and familial behaviours: children and parents are to be educated towards food practices that are seen as in accord with social normativity (normal) and avoid those considered as deviant (pathological).

Keywords

• court decisions
• parental respondsibilities
• food
• normality
• family law
• best interests of the child