Reasons why making time for family dinner is great benefits
Don't let scheduling conflicts interrupt the tradition of sitting down to dinner with your family.
Soccer
practices, dance rehearsals, play dates, and other scheduling conflicts make
family mealtime seem like a thing of the past. Suddenly, we're feeding our kids
breakfast bars during the morning commute, sneaking 100-calorie packs at our
desks, and grabbing dinner at the drive-thru window.
Despite
the feeling that there's no time for such luxuries, 59% of families report
eating dinner together at least five times a week -- an increase from only 47%
in 1998, according to the Importance of Family Dinner IV, a report from the
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
If
you're finding it difficult to get together with your family at the dinner
table, here's a little inspiration.
Supper can be a
stress reliever
Believe
it or not, if you have a demanding job, finding time to eat with your family
may actually leave you feeling less stressed.
In
2008, researchers at Brigham Young University conducted a study of IBM workers
and found that sitting down to a family meal helped working moms reduce the
tension and strain from long hours at the office. (Interestingly, the effect
wasn't as pronounced among dads.) Alas, the study didn't take into account the
stress of rushing to get out of the office, picking up the kids, and getting a
meal on the table.
Kids might learn
to love their veggies
A
2000 survey found that the 9- to 14-year-olds who ate dinner with their
families most frequently ate more fruits and vegetables and less soda and fried
foods. Their diets also had higher amounts of many key nutrients, like calcium,
iron, and fiber.
Family
dinners allow for both "discussions of nutrition [and] provision of
healthful foods," says Matthew W. Gillman, M.D., the survey's lead
researcher and the director of the Obesity Prevention Program at the Harvard
Medical School.
It's the perfect
setting for new foods
A
family meal is the perfect opportunity for parents to expose children to
different foods and expand their tastes.
In
a 2003 study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, children were
offered some pieces of sweet red pepper and asked to rate how much they liked
it. Then, each day for the next eight school days, they were invited to eat as
much of the pepper as they wanted. On the final day, the kids were again asked
to rate how much they liked it.
By
the end of the experiment, the children rated the pepper more highly and were
eating more of it -- even more so than another group of children who were offered
a reward for eating the pepper. These results suggest that a little more
exposure and a little less "You can leave the table once you finish your
broccoli!" will teach kids to enjoy new foods, even if they don't like
them at first.
You control the
portions
Americans
spend more than 40% of their food budget on meals outside of the home. Eating
out can be convenient but it's also caloric -- portion sizes in restaurants
just keep growing! The average restaurant meal has as much as 60% more calories
than a homemade meal. Studies show that when we are presented with more food,
we eat more food, possibly leading to our expanding waistlines.
Healthy meals
mean healthy kids
Studies
have shown that kids who eat with their families frequently are less likely to
get depressed, consider suicide, and develop an eating disorder. They are also
more likely to delay sex and to report that their parents are proud of them.
When a child is feeling down or depressed, family dinner can act as an
intervention.
This
is especially true of eating disorders, says Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., a
professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, who has
studied the impact of family meal patterns on adolescents. "If a child
eats with his or her parents on a regular basis, problems will be identified
earlier on," she says.
Family dinners
help kids "just say no"
Eating
family dinners at least five times a week drastically lowers a teen's chance of
smoking, drinking, and using drugs. Teens who have fewer than three family
dinners a week are 3.5 times more likely to have abused prescription drugs and
to have used illegal drugs other than marijuana, three times more likely to
have used marijuana, more than 2.5 times more likely to have smoked cigarettes,
and 1.5 times more likely to have tried alcohol, according to the CASA report.
"While
substance abuse can strike any family, regardless of ethnicity, affluence, age,
or gender, the parental engagement fostered at the dinner table can be a
simple, effective tool to help prevent [it]," says Elizabeth Planet, one
of the report's researchers, and the center's vice president and director of
special projects.
Better food,
better report card
Of
teens that eat with their family fewer than three times a week, 20% get C's or
lower on their report cards, according to the CASA report. Only 9% of teens who
eat frequently with their families do this poorly in school.
Family
meals give children an opportunity to have conversations with adults, as well
as to pick up on how adults are using words with each other, which may explain
why family dinnertime is also thought to build a child's vocabulary.
Put a little
cash in your pocket
In
2007, the average household spent $3,465 on meals at home, and $2,668 on meals
away from home, according to the national Consumer Expenditure Survey from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
When
you take into consideration that the $2,668 spent on meals away from home only
accounts for about 30% of meals (according to historical data), that's about $8
per meal outside of the home, and only about $4.50 per each meal made in your
own kitchen. You do the math!
