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Families That Eat Together Means Kids Eating Better

New research shows healthier diets from regular family meals

March 9, 2009

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When families eat together, kids eat better. That's the conclusion of a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, in which researchers found adolescents who participated in regular family meals reported more healthful diets and meal patterns compared with those without regular family meals.

Data were drawn from Project EAT, a study designed to examine socio-environmental, personal, and behavioral determinants of dietary intake and weight status among an ethnically diverse sample of adolescents. Youngsters completed classroom surveys and a questionnaire in 1998 and 1999 when they were about 12 to 13 years old — referred to as Time 1 — and then completed a further round as middle adolescents five years later Time 2.

Regular family meals, defined as five or more meals together per week, declined over time. Sixty percent of youth had regular family meals during early adolescence compared with just 30 percent during middle adolescence.

Having regular family meals at both Time 1 and Time 2 was associated with greater frequency of eating breakfast and dinner and increased intakes of vegetables, calcium-rich food, dietary fiber, and several nutrients including calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, and zinc five years later.

An important finding is that although adolescents with regular family meals at both Time 1 and Time 2 had better diet quality, on average, overall dietary adequacy was not achieved for the entire study sample.

These finding are consistent with current national consumption data that identified eating enough fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, potassium, magnesium, vitamin E, and dietary fiber as a problem for this age group.

"These findings suggest that having regular family meals during the transition from early to middle adolescence positively impacts the development of healthful eating behaviors for youth," said researcher Teri L. Burgess-Champoux, PhD, RD, LD.

"Findings from the current analysis, in conjunction with similar findings from a longitudinal analysis of older adolescents transitioning to young adulthood, strongly suggest that regular family meals have long-term nutritional benefits...The importance of incorporating shared mealtime experiences on a consistent basis during this key developmental period should be emphasized to parents, health care providers, and educators," Burgess-Champoux concluded.

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