Family Meals Make a Difference

Family Facts: BC Council Blog

Nov 13

One of the ways that families can spend quality time together all year round is by eating together. This simple activity has been shown to have lasting benefits for family members, including mental wellness, prevention of risky behaviours, healthy eating habits and closer family relationships.

Better Eat Together, a study from the BC Dairy Foundation, found that 80% of parents rank eating dinner together with children as one of the most important or a very important activity they do with children. “Parents and children are more emotionally fit when they eat meals together.” says John Rosemond, MD Family Pyschologist, one of the sources consulted in the study.

The National Center on Addiction&Substance Abuse at Columbia University found several preventative benefits to family meals as well in The Importance of Family Dinners V. Children and teens who had five or more family dinners per week, compared to kids who had less than three, were:

At 70% lower risk for substance abuse.
Half as likely to try cigarettes.
One third less likely to try alcohol.
Likelier to get better grades in school.

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I think it is important too,

I think it is important too, to look at why families are not eating together. Is one parent still at work, too tired or stressed out? Is it less stressful for the teenager to stay away?

What is the culture around the dinner table? Are family members enjoying dinner together or are the parents grilling the child about what they did all day? In my childhood, the dinner table was actually an uncomfortable place to be. Many arguments and control tactics took place there.

I think the article, "Healthy Futures for BC Families" is on the right track. Looking at ways to support families, not just while the children are young, but also as they grow into pre- and teenage years and the needs of the family changes.

Programs that offer counseling, parent education or support are really helpful. "Healthy Connections" is a program offered through Family Services that help parents who have had a traumatic childhood, move into being parents themselves, without passing along unhealthy habits and ways of coping to their children. It is a program that has helped me and many other families tremendously.

Submitted by Anonymous on Nov <span class="day">18</span>.

BC Council for Families

Family Facts: BC Council Blog