March 30, 2011 GUEST BLOG POST by Melissa VanAlstyne
“I have work to catch up on”, “I’m not hungry”, “I’m going out”, we have all heard these excuses when it comes to sitting down to a family meal and often it seems easier to just forgo it all together. However, research is proving just how big of an impact family meals do have. Not only is sitting down to a family meal a good way to keep the family connected but it also has a number of health benefits as well, one of which is promoting healthy eating habits among adolescents.
According to a journal article in the Journal of Adolescent Health [full citation below] having a family meal can help to detect early signs of disordered eating as well as help prevent disordered eating from ever beginning. Having a family meal allows adolescents to see their parents engaging in healthy eating habits and therefore model their own eating habits after them. In addition, eating together allows parents to monitor their children’s diet which allows them to detect signs of disordered eating earlier.
While simply prioritizing sitting and eating together is good in and of itself, family meals should be times that parents and children value and find enjoyable. This means keeping discussion at the meal free from conflict around food or other issues, thus making the meal something the family looks forward to each day.
While life is undoubtedly extremely stressful and busy and finding time to sit down and eat together may seem a daunting task, the benefits of making sure to prioritize this family time cannot be overstressed. Adolescents who report more frequent and enjoyable family meals have been repeatedly found to be at a decreased risk for engaging in unhealthy weight control behaviors. So find a time that works for your family, sit down, pass the chicken and enjoy!
Fulkerson, J. Neumark-Sztainer,D. Story, M. Wall, M.(2004).Are Family Meal Patterns Associated with Disordered Eating Behaviors Among Adolescents? Journal of Adolescent Health,35. 350-359
This post made me realize why my dad was so insistent on always having dinner together every night. Growing up I looked forward to family dinners. Every evening my family would all sit together at the kitchen table and share a meal together. It became a time when we could talk about our day and share stories. Since both of my parents worked full time and I was enrolled in day care until middle school I loved family dinners because it was my guaranteed hour of the day with my parents.
Eating dinner with my family also helped me to appreciate food. I learned to try many different and new things at a young age and my friends will still make fun of me for enjoying ‘bizarre’ foods.
One thing that I think is important to consider is that in order for family dinners to be effective everyone must be engaged at the dinner table. I don’t think that family dinners where the television is on in the background are as effective as ones with no distractions. I also believe one becomes more aware of what they are consuming during family dinners, unlike dinners in front of the television or computer. The television and computer distract us and we often eat in excess because we haven’t given our body time to realize that we are full.
I know that in this day and age we are all super busy and don’t believe we have time to sit down, enjoy our food, and unwind with the people we love. I still try to have family meals with my roommate and friends at school. My friends and I often try to have “family” meals together on Sunday evenings. It’s a great way for us all to get together and prepare a meal. We have some of our funniest conversations during this time and we learn a lot about each other. I wish everyone got to experience family meals like I did. Not only do I think they left me with positive eating habits, I also think they allowed me to communicate better with others.
I think Melissa’s post demonstrates just how important daily meals are within a family. Not only do they bring the whole group together to reflect on the day, but they also serve as a time to model healthy eating behaviors.
She points out how this could be beneficial for detecting eating disorders, but I also think it’s important for monitoring overeating and/ or poor diet as well. If parents or caregivers are preparing a daily meal that everyone will share, it provides them with a unique opportunity to control what the family is consuming. So, even if kids and spouses are on their own for breakfast and lunch, dinner can at least incorporate healthier foods that may otherwise be left out of the diet.
It also creates a daily routine that involves healthy eating, which may encourage better habits later in life. A recent study by Anderson and Whitaker (2010) found that preschoolers who engaged in an evening meal, obtained enough sleep, and were limited in their TV time were found to be 40% less obese than other children that did not follow this trend. This study points out just how important daily meals can really be!
While my own family did not physically sit down to eat together everyday, my mom still prepared a daily meal for everyone to eat on their own time. She always tried to include a lean meat, veggie, and starch, and I know that her choices definitely influenced my eating habits then and today. In the future, I hope to model these same health habits for my children.
Source: Anderson, SE & Whitaker, RC. (2010). Household routines and obesity in US preschool children. Pediatrics; 125(3): 420-8.
This is so interesting! It reminds me of this article that I found while research my topic:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WB2-51WTYXV-1&_user=209810&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2011&_rdoc=26&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236698%232011%23999439997%232891734%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6698&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=174&_acct=C000014439&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=209810&md5=d0ef38371d078f607b0a7780ee9563a6&searchtype=a
I didn’t get to use it this time because it went beyond the scope of my topic, I decided.
While the article I found is specifically about young girls who find themselves sucked into LA’s meanest gangs and how family meals can be a place of support and encouragement in the healing process after they manage to break their gang affiliation, I thought of it because of the idea that sitting down together as a family for a meal can be so… revealing? reassuring? Something like that…
Who knew that family meals would be so important? I mean, I can remember seeing on TV, kids roll their eyes when asked to set the table (or on the other extreme, obediently do it without a single whine, complaint, or hesitation…)