Today’s families are pulled in a million different directions. Parents work long hours and kids’ schedules are packed with school, sports and other extracurricular activities. Plus, we’re expected to exercise almost every day, and on top of that put healthy meals on the table. Instead, many times, sitting down at the dinner table for a family meal just doesn’t make it to our list of the top priorities for the day. Rather, everyone retreats to their “screen” of choice—whether it’s a computer, TV or tablet—for yet another solitary, distraction-filled meal.
Despite the perpetual time crunch we all feel, I think there can be a resurgence of the family meal—it just takes a little planning, a little effort and a little family teamwork. We can break down those barriers to sitting down together, and we can get back to a place of enjoying each other’s company, conversation and of course—let’s not forget—delicious food.
Long-term benefits of family meals have been studied and reported in research literature. Recent research has shown that children and adolescents who share family meals three or more times per week are more likely to have healthier eating patterns than those who share fewer than three family meals. In addition, they’re less likely to engage in disordered eating (such as skipping meals, compulsive overeating and restricting), and are more likely to perform better academically and have better relationships with their parents.
New research from the Journal of Adolescent Health shows that the more frequent the family dinners, the higher the impact. With each additional dinner, researchers found “fewer emotional and behavioral problems, greater emotional well-being, more trusting and helpful behaviors toward others and higher life satisfaction.”
“Family” Is What You Make It You might not have a spouse, kids, siblings or parents who live nearby, but you still have family. Your “family” can be any group of people—a roommate, a more distant relative, a neighbor, a coworker or a teammate.
5 Steps to Reviving Family Meals
1. Talk to your “significant other.” This means talking to whoever else shares in the decision-making and must agree that this is an important and necessary change. Decide together that you want to make family meals a priority.
2. Come up with a realistic plan. How often can you sit down together? And how can the family divide responsibility between planning, shopping, prep and clean up? This should not all fall on mom’s to-do list.
3. Make “the food” the easy part. There are plenty of ways to get quick, healthy meals on the table. Not everything has to be made from scratch, so don’t feel like you need to chain yourself to your stove all day if you simply don’t have that kind of time. Here a few fast meal tips and ideas that you can try: Boil some pasta and serve it with jarred marinara and a bagged salad. You can even add fresh or frozen veggies to your jarred sauce to jazz it up a little. Heat frozen, pre-seasoned fish or frozen pre-cooked shrimp and serve with steamed frozen veggies. Order your favorite take-out, but make it “half-plate healthy” by adding a bagged salad or veggies that are fresh, frozen or canned.
4. Eat, talk and enjoy. Include everyone in dinner conversation. You can talk about your day’s highs and lows, tell a funny story or even talk about how the food tastes. Let the conversation flow.
5. Take time to reflect. You made the effort and enjoyed dinner as a family. Now take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. What did you find personally beneficial? Do you feel any different? How did your family benefit? How can you make the experience better? What would you do differently next time?
When I go through this with friends and family, they will often describe feeling “lighter” not in weigh but in heart. They feel better after the meal than before. They feel more satisfied with their food, their family dynamic and their lives. Now that’s powerful stuff.
I think it’s a given that we can say “goodbye” to the June Cleaver days, but I disagree that we should abandon the family meal. It’s an opportunity for valuable human connection and for food to mean more than calories and nutrients.
