How to make the most of family dinners

Leslie Beck: If your family’s weekday schedule prevents you from sharing dinner together, other mealtimes count, too. Eating breakfast or lunch, and dinners, as a family on weekends can also foster communication and healthy eating habits.Jupiterimages

When I was a kid, family dinners were a routine event. Most days of the week, my mom, my brother and I would sit down at the dining-room table to eat our evening meal and talk about school, family, friends and whatever else came up.

These days, regular family dinners seem like a thing of the past. Long work days, time-consuming commutes and busy after-school schedules make it challenging for families to gather around the dinner table at the end of the day.

But the dying tradition may come at a cost, especially for teenagers. According to researchers from McGill University in Montreal, regular family dinners help protect kids from the negative effects of cyberbullying.

The study of nearly 19,000 students aged 12 to 18, published earlier this month in JAMA Pediatrics, revealed that about one-fifth reported being bullied on the Internet or by text messaging in the previous year. As the frequency of family dinners increased during the week (Monday though Sunday), the mental-health and behavioural impacts of cyberbullying, including anxiety, self-harm, thoughts of suicide, fighting and substance abuse, diminished.

The findings suggested regular family dinners – at least four times a week – provided kids the opportunity to open up about cyberbullying and parents a venue to offer coping strategies to offset its harmful effects, and possibly even prevent bullying before it starts.

There are other reasons to carve out time for family dinners. Studies show that the more often families eat together, the more likely kids are to excel academically, and to "say no" to smoking and drugs. Regular family dinners also seem to shield kids from developing eating disorders.

There are nutritional benefits, too. Kids tend to eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer unhealthy foods (e.g., soft drinks, fried and fatty foods) and are less likely to be obese when they regularly eat family dinners. Kids who eat dinner with their families consume more fibre, calcium and iron. (Studies find parents eat more healthily, too.) Family dinners also provide a forum for discussions about healthy food choices at and away from home.

While the family dinner has been the focus of research, that doesn't mean it's inherently preferable to other meals. If your family's weekday schedule prevents you from sharing dinner together, other mealtimes count, too. Eating breakfast or lunch, and dinners, as a family on weekends can also foster communication and healthy eating habits.

Leslie Beck, a registered dietitian, is based at the Medisys clinic in Toronto. She is a regular contributor to CTV News Channel; lesliebeck.com.