2. Family protective factors:
Family meals offer protection from weight, eating and body image problems.
Why have family meals?
- Family members can sit down together as a family and enjoy the communal experience of sharing food.
- They are a chance for family to come together and share conversation about news of the day, plans for the future, or any other lively topic.
- Family meals have become rarer in a fast-paced society marked by stops at fast food restaurants and pre-packaged meals eaten on-the-run. They are a chance to add a personal touch to eating in a relaxed home environment.
Project EAT (Neumark-Sztainer, 2007, pp. 191-192) showed advantages of family meals:
- Teens who eat more frequently with their families have lower body mass index (BMI)
- Teens who eat more often with their families use less alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.
- Grades in school were higher for girls and boys who ate at least seven meals with their families per week compared with teens who ate no meals with their families.
- Suicide attempts and depression were higher for teens who didn’t eat with their families compared to those who ate at least seven family meals per week.
- Twice as many girls who ate with their families two or fewer times, compared to girls who ate with their families five or more times in the past week, participated in extreme weight control behaviors.
- Disordered eating was very decreased in girls who participated in family meals at least three to four times per week.
- Family meals are as likely to occur in families where the mother worked as in families where the mother did not work. This suggests the most important issue is making family meals a priority, regardless of work schedules.
