While I know you have likely heard it before, I want to take the time to drive home how important the family meal is. And in my experience, there is no single greater tool for getting the pickiest of kids to eat well. True, I have not conducted any research studies, lately, on the effect of family meals on picky eating, but I have a fairly good arsenal of personal experience, and client and reader feedback to support the idea.
And here’s the benefits that have been closely studied. Hold on to your hats.
Children who regularly eat meals with their family are:
- 24% more likely to eat fruits and vegetables and less junk foods.
- Significantly less likely to have substance abuse problems. (varies from substance to substance)
- 35% less likely to have disordered eating
- 40% less likely to be overweight or obese
- Less likely to be truant. Truancy rates double in kids who do not eat regularly with their families.
- Last but not least, have just a generally better opinion of their parents and family
The subject of the family mealtime is the life’s passion of many, has over 21, 000, 000 hits on Google, and its very own movement and website The Family Dinner Project.
And I can hear you, now. Making excuses for your family’s particular limitations. But our schedules! But ballet class! But I work weird hours! But… (and this is my favorite) I just don’t have the time! Time. Such a jerk, time. Always keeping us from doing all the important things in life. And yet, I think Cody C. Delistraty hit the nail on the head in his article for The Atlantic on the subject:
“It’s incredible what we’re willing to make time for if we’re motivated.”
Too right. I mean, you DO, after all, manage to make time for those ballet classes, yes? And while there is certainly a benefit in dance and other extracurricular activities, are they as far reaching and long lasting as the benefits of the Family Dinner Table? It’s a question worth asking. And a question with an answer that we may not love all that much. But the only way to really make change is to ask the hard questions of ourselves, and be willing to adjust when we see the not so awesome parts of ourselves reflected in the answer.
If there is anything I’ve learned about parenting, it’s that whenever there is anything at all about our family life that we don’t like or that we resent, we as parents are the ones responsible for changing it. That goes double maybe triple for the Family Dinner Table. I mean, are we really expecting our little is going to walk up to us and say, “Mommy and Daddy, I would eat better if we all ate together”? We are the ones with insight.
It is definitely up to us.
Eating meals as a family, above all else, signifies that the whole family is in this food and eating thing together. That the burden of eating better, eating well, or sometimes eating at all, is not something kids have to bear on their own. And when you think about it, that’s an awful lot to put on a little’s plate (no pun intended.) Would you expect them to ride a bike by taking off the training wheels and just sticking them out on the street and hoping for the best? Eating well is a learned and modeled behavior.
To carry on the bike analogy. Riding a bike on their own is learned through a series of steps, but there is one all important step-taking the training wheels off. Kids CAN ride their bikes indefinitely with the training wheels on-indefinitely. But if we want them to take off the training wheels, to do things that are little harder, and have the confidence to ride down the street on their own, we have to be willing to run behind the bike for awhile. All the while encouraging them, and showing them that we’ll be here to catch them if they fall and that they definitely do not NEED training wheels.
Picky eating and crutch foods are the same as training wheels. They absolutely make eating easier, but they don’t make it better. No one will die from eating crutch foods for the rest of their life (well, obesity and chronic disease aside), but they won’t be experiencing anything new or exciting either. They won’t be able to enjoy meals at friends’ houses, and certainly will be limited in their ability to wholly enjoy traveling to new places, or even to a new restaurant.
AND if you rip off those training wheels, and aren’t there to run behind that bike, not only are they likely to fall, they are likely to never get back on the bike, again. Same with expecting them to eat broccoli and beets without your love and support. Not only will they not eat them that meal, but they are likely to never try them, again. We know for a fact that eating with parents gives kids confidence to try new foods. We also know that when new foods are introduced over several meals, kids eventually learn to like them (this one has been proven repeatedly), but they won’t come to it on their own.
Eating family meals with your kiddos is just like running behind the bike right after you’ve taken off the training wheels. Yes, it takes a little work. Yes, it takes a little commitment. All things worth doing do. And once they do eat well on their own, eating family dinners is a way of supporting them not just in their food life, but in their emotional and social life, as well. And given that this ONE simple thing can have such a positive impact on our children on so many levels, it’s something we absolutely must find the motivation to make time for.
Below are several links to articles about the benefits of eating more meals together.
Challenge yourself to add more family mealtimes to your kiddos’ lives. The more the better. If you are eating less than 3 meals a week together as a family, challenge yourself to eat, at least, 2 more family meals next week. You CAN do it!
http://www.casacolumbia.org/addiction-research/reports/importance-of-family-dinners-2012
Ginger Bakos is a Meal Planning and Food Budget Wizard who wrote for the former blog Dinosaurs Are NOT Food. She is committed to helping moms feed their families well and within their budget, believing that everyone can, and deserves, to eat well! Her greatest passion is freeing moms and kiddos from the “kid food” cycle and guiding them to a healthful and positive relationship with real food. She converted her very own 3 year old Master of All Things Bread and Cheese to a beet and broccoli lover, and she knows you can make it happen in your house, too.