Benefits of the Family Dinner
Many adults have memories of the “family dinner ritual” from their childhood. Yet many of these same adults feel what seems to be insurmountable time and scheduling pressures that keep them from making the family dinner ritual part of their families’ lives.
As hard as it may be for many teenagers to imagine, there was a time when the family dinner was a kind of ritual in most homes and where family values were ingrained. Today, though, only about half of American teenagers say they have regular family dinners. Families with older teenagers eat fewer dinners together than those with younger children.
The renewed interest in the ritual may have been spurred by concerns that the number of families who do not dine together is increasing. According to several surveys, 30 to 40 percent of families do not eat dinner together five to seven nights a week, though most families eat dinner together some days a week.
Up until 2003, numerous studies showed that the family dinner was on the decline in the United States. Since that time, the percentage of American families sharing the family dinner ritual has risen again. This may well be because having shared family time at the family dinner has become a focus of studies that have proven its benefits.
Many studies have shown a variety of benefits for children in families who make a commitment to having family dinners. Studies have shown that teenagers are less likely to use or abuse drugs and alcohol when they eat dinner with their family on a regular basis. A study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University showed that compared with teenagers who have five or more family dinners a week, those who have two or less are three times as likely to try marijuana, two and half times as likely to smoke cigarettes and one and half times as likely to try alcohol.
Studies have also shown that children and teenagers tend to have better grades when their families have family dinners at least five times a week. For instance, the Columbia University study found that frequent family dinners were associated with better school performance, with teens 40 percent more likely to get A’s and B’s.
Additionally, studies have shown that children and teenagers show less signs of stress when they eat dinners with their families regularly. Another finding that may be surprising to many readers is that a Harvard University study found that family dinners were the most important family events in helping children develop language skills.
A handful of studies have also suggested that eating as a family improves children’s consumption of fruits and vegetables, grains, fiber and vitamins and minerals. Children who have family meals also eat less fried food, saturated fat and soda, studies suggest. So the family dinner ritual is a good opportunity to improve you and your children’s diet.
Many American families have realized the importance of the family meal in creating a family bond, as well as the life skills benefits it confers on their children and teenagers. However, most families face the combined constraints of two-income households where both parents are working outside the home during the day, the extended/late work hours that studies show have become more prevalent in today’s US, and the increase in after-school activities in which children and teenagers participate. In surveys of parents, parents say the two most common obstacles are late working hours and activities that overlap with mealtime, like soccer games and Girl Scout meetings.
Many families that do dine together make a concerted effort to carve out the time. Some spend Sundays cooking meals for the week, some do prep work the evening before, some use takeout a couple of nights a week, and many parents of young children guiltily admit that they could not prepare a dinner if it were not for the TV, which gets turned on for 30 to 60 minutes while they cook.
Parents generally agree that family dinners are vital. According to one survey, 87 percent of parents say that it is “very important” or “extremely important” to eat together as a family.
The effort to do carve out the “sacred” time for the family dinner in a harried world has spawned hundreds of cookbooks, thousands of recipes on the Internet and the re-emergence of slow cookers, aimed at busy mothers. All of these strategies can help busy modern families make time for what is important in their and their children’s lives by making it a little easier to plan and deliver home-cooked meals with the entire family on a consistent basis.
