Winter 2003 - Volume 5
In the Know with Family Mealtime

• Unviersity Studies Support the Value of Family Meals
• School Meals are Learning Centers
• Schools Can Promote Healthy Eating and Encourage Family Mealtime
• Downloadable Parents' Newsletter
• Give us your feeback!
• Past issues of the NuNews Newsletter

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University Studies Support the Value of Family Meals

Key findings from Columbia University – CASA® (The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse) and other research highlight why family meals matter, and encourage the need for schools to plan activities that support this time-honored tradition.

• University studies support the value of family meals
• Eating together with the family is related to better school performance
• Teens that have frequent family dinners are less likely to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs
• Eating the family dinner helps to keep teens eating right

University studies support the value of family meals

Eating a family meal together is becoming a lost art.¹ Even though 80% of parents consider the family meal an important activity,² the number of children eating dinner with their families decreases by more than 50% as they move from middle school to high school.³

http://www.casafamilyday.org/about.htm

This is a serious concern. More research on young children and teens now supports the value of the family meal as a tool parents can use to help them raise healthy, well-adjusted children. To emphasize the importance of the family meal, President Bush, along with the governors of 35 states in 2001 proclaimed the fourth Monday in September “Family Day—A Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children”.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA®), at Columbia University, recently polled 1,987 teenagers and 304 parents of teens throughout the USA on the value of mealtime.³ Key findings from this survey, and other studies, highlight why family meals matter, and support the need for schools to plan activities that encourage this time-honored tradition.

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Eating together with the family is related to better school performance

Teens who have dinner with their families five or more times a week are almost twice as likely to earn A’s in school than teens who have family dinner two or fewer times per week.³

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Teens that have frequent family dinners are less likely to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs³

Eating dinner together can help keep open communication between parents and their children. This helps parents find out more about their child’s likes, dislikes and daily life. Having this information can help them direct their children toward more positive behaviors.

Family meals are important memories in a child’s life.

Adolescents with depression and other mental health problems practice fewer unifying family traditions, such as sharing daily meals and special events when compared with their peers without these problems.⁴ The researchers noted that these traditions provide a time to talk about family history. Parents can also model how to handle conflict. This information is important for the development of a child’s emotional growth.

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Eating the family dinner helps to keep teens eating right

Recent studies^5,6 have shown the nutritional effect of eating family dinner among older children and adolescents, which includes:

• Eating more fruits and vegetables
• Improved overall dietary quality with higher intake of several nutrients including calcium, fiber, iron, folate, vitamin C and B vitamins
• Lower intake of fried foods and soft drinks

“Findings from this study⁶ provide clear evidence of a strong, positive association between frequency of family meals and quality of dietary intake…and

….discussions about family meals can be incorporated within schools and other community-based settings.”

Another study from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health observed similar findings.⁷ In addition,

…adolescents who eat more than three evening meals per week with their families were significantly less likely to skip breakfast than those who eat fewer family meals.

The report also noted the positive effect of parents as role models to their children.

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References: Click here.