Family meals matter

What’s the connection between the family dinner hour and healthy youth development? If your answer is any variation on the theme of “finish your vegetables,” you’re thinking much too small.

“One of the core predictors of children’s well-being and academic success is how much time they spend eating with adults,” says William Doherty, professor of family social science and director of the marriage and family therapy program. So striking is this finding that it’s fast becoming a rallying cry for grassroots campaigns aimed at strengthening families and supporting positive youth development.

In three Twin Cities communities—Eden Prairie, Southwest Minneapolis, and Wayzata—the lists are growing of families who have pledged to eat dinner together at least three or four times a week. In Minneapolis, Mayor R.T. Rybak and spouse Megan O’Hara were the first to sign on. Similar campaigns are popping up nationwide, often as outgrowths of the “Take Back Your Family Time” movement, which Doherty helped galvanize among overcommitted, overstressed parents and their overscheduled kids.

In truth, the benefits of family togetherness do not require sharing the mashed potatoes, says Doherty. Any regular, shared family experience will do. But as Doherty points out, “Eating is a biological necessity. There are few better vehicles for family togetherness than the nightly dinner.”

Doherty coaches community folks to start their own campaigns, but eschews prescriptives. He does offer general tips: Make space for the family ritual (keep the table uncluttered and the TV turned off). Get both adults and children involved in meal planning, preparation, and cleanup. Don’t fall back on takeout: “Home cooking, with the chance for everyone to participate, provides a better experience on average than buying a bucket of fried chicken and putting it on the table.”

And don’t shy away from new routines: One family Doherty knows occasionally decamps from table to fireplace hearth for a picnic. Another has a special meal on the best china once a week. The parents take turns cooking; the family cleans up together and then plays board games. Best of all, says Doherty, “the kids brag to their friends about it.”

Tips for healthy family meals

What does a healthy family meal look like? Bill Doherty offers a few insights:

• Meal Ritual 101: Everyone knows when the meal begins and ends, starts and finishes together, and participates in the family meal ritual. “There’s no ‘eat and go,’” Doherty says. “It’s not just a feeding opportunity.”
• The conversation involves everyone.
• Unnecessary conflict is minimized. “Conflict is the No. 1 reason family meals don’t work,” Doherty says. “Most of us know not to mess up bedtime talks with kids with potentially unpleasant topics. But at meals, parents make the mistake of badgering children to finish peas or to bargain about dessert. This is not the time, when your 12-year-old is in your line of vision, to say, ‘we need to talk about your report card.’”

Originally printed in the spring 2005 issue of Kaleidoscope