I am generally of the view that books in my field are redundant, as they are always out of date by the time they come to publication and rapidly become sadly obsolete. However, this book proves me wrong. It gives a fascinating account of the interplay of physiology and behaviour that underpins the process of eating behaviour in childhood, drawing on experimental, observational and epidemiological evidence from a wide range of disciplines. This complex material is clearly and readably explained, making the book useful and accessible for psychologists, but equally so for nutritionists or health professionals.

The introduction gives a lucid account of the three most important areas to understand: growth, development and energy balance. There then follows two chapters discussing milk and solid feeding. I set out to read these as a chore and stayed with them, reading for pleasure. Although much of the material is familiar to me as a specialist in this area, much was new and all of it hung together as a well-reasoned whole.

The book aims to examine firstly, how feeding behaviour relates to stages of development and states of nutrition and, secondly, the developmental consequences of malnutrition. Thus the other chapters describe a range of relevant areas: the premature or growth-retarded infant, deficiency states, failure to thrive, obesity and eating disorders. The author presents the available evidence in each section in a balanced and analytical manner, which impressively weighs up material from a range of different and sometimes conflicting disciplines. This style of scholarship is very different from the current tendency to highly systematized, hierarchical approaches to evidence, but is no less rigorous and is well suited to this diverse literature.

I have a few minor caveats. This is quite an old-fashioned book that you actually need to sit down and read, rather than scan and abstract. It is not long or intimidating, but neither is it easy to dip into. It is nice not be treated like an idiot, but when returning to sections part read before, it would be helpful to have slightly more in the way of headings and even the odd boxes or diagrams summarizing the key arguments and findings. Much of the evidence presented is quite old, which is not a problem in areas that are largely established, such as the cognitive outcome of malnutrition, but is a weakness in the most rapidly developing areas, such as the genetics of obesity. Maybe we can hope for a second edition that can address these issues?

Meanwhile I will certainly recommend this book to all my psychology colleagues who deal with feeding, as well as anyone with an academic interest in feeding and nutrition. It would be a perfect introduction for a postgraduate student or a keen honours student and for an interested health professional. Indeed this would be a good, scholarly read for anyone interested in a topic dear to the heart of any clinician or parent dealing with growing children.