The One Little Secret to Guarantee a Close Family

If there’s one thing — above all others — that all families should do (and do consistently), it’s this.

And it’s not even something difficult. All of us, if we want to, can do this everyday with very minor habit changes, and the impact is provably significant. That’s right, aside from being common sense anyway, there’s actually real and proper science behind it. This really, really works.

And what is this super secret little tip for bringing a family together? Just two words:

Eating together.

That’s it.

Well, OK, perhaps there are a few things we should go into in a bit more detail. Remember that science stuff I mentioned above? Yes, this really has been studied for years, with lots of different variations and in lots of different countries. And guess what? The results are always the same. It seems there really is truth in the old adage: The family that eats together, stays together.

For some this is obvious. Others can only imagine a nightmare of bickering, arguments and potato throwing in direct contradiction of this statement. But as it turns out, it doesn’t seem to matter where you start. Done consistently, the overall effect is the same.

Let’s have a look at what the men and women in white coats have been discovering on the subject:

Family Meals are More Nutritious

Pretty much every study has confirmed that eating together as a family results in all members of it eating more healthily. One Harvard study actually put a number on it: a family that eats together is twice as likely to eat all five servings of fruit and vegetables a day than than those who don’t.

Why? Well, it’s all to do with what we tend to do when we don’t eat together. I don’t know about you, but I’ll tend to pick the easiest and quickest thing to prepare over whether it’s actually healthy or not — I just want the job done so I can do something else. Eating together is always an ‘event’ — even if its a simple daily one — and one that we tend to prepare better for.

Family Meals are Physically Healthier for Everyone

There’s other interesting effects that we don’t always tend to highlight when we first think on the subject.

Family meals, prepped at home, are almost always served in more sensible portions that when eating out, especially in countries like the US where portion control is generally considered an offensive term. I say ‘almost always’ because, let’s face it, these scientific conclusions were obviously not reached by studying celebratory events such as Christmas, Thanksgiving or Birthday meals. Of course, the other benefits still ring true, so the odd ‘splurge’ isn’t going to undo everything else.

I personally think it actually adds to it and love the constant background noise of family banter at these occasions.

But even with portion control aside, most studies also show that eating as a family actually reduces the chances of obesity due to the increased time spent talking. Think about it this way — if you’re sitting on a sofa alone watching TV with your dinner, you’ll just keep eating until everything you made for yourself (which we’ve already established may not be the healthiest choice) is gone. At a table with others, a slower eating pattern resulting from conversation during mealtimes is actually enough to reduce overall food consumption.

And there’s a real, actual scientific reason for this; it takes around twenty minutes for your body to signal to your brain that you’re ‘full’. You can shovel a lot in in that time before you get that signal if you’re not paying attention, but much less if you’re chatting and eating more slowly.

Studies also found that children are less likely to be picky eaters and more likely to have tried a wider variation of foods if they regularly eat as a family from a young age.

Anecdotally, I can confirm this. My own kids, now 12 and 11, love fruit and veg and happily eat more than their recommended amounts. Not because we’re parenting geniuses you understand, but simply because they’ve been served it from when they were babies and they’ve also helped us to prep many of those meals since they were around nine.

There’s rarely any ‘fussiness’ issues with food they’re served, although it does happen from time to time. I mean, the less said about ‘beetroot-gate’ the better.

But do you know what? Even if your entire family is addicted to take-aways, fast food and fry ups, you’ll still benefit from the biggest advantage anyway - the whole fluffy ‘togetherness’ thing. Let’s take a look at the evidence.

Family Meals Bring a Family Together

This really is the best title for this section. It’s really simple, but it’s made up of many aspects.

Family meals allow kids, parents and partners to come together to talk, share or discuss ‘big issues’. This strengthens ties, helps build better relationships and, in the case of kids and parents especially, allows great two way communication about, well, anything.

It’s this regular contact that is, in part, thought to explain why children who have regular family meals consistently score more highly academically. They are also statistically much less likely to be involved in high risk behaviours such as substance abuse, violence and stress.

The other part of this is parents acting as role models in terms of eating habits and especially table manners. No slouching, talking with mouthfuls or lazy scooping with forks allowed at OUR table.

Well, OK, to be more precise it’s probably more accurate to say no family mealtime would be complete without at least ONE discussion about ‘slouching, talking with mouthfuls or lazy scooping with forks’. Every. Single. Time.

Still, there will come a day where this won’t happen.

And then I’ll probably miss it.

Teenagers especially seem to benefit from eating together. I can’t comment on this directly as yet because my own kids still have a couple of years to go, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was also true. Studies have shown that teens who eat with their parents tend to be emotionally stronger, have better mental health and have good manners. What more could you want?

Of course, many of us would say that most of this is common sense, but the reality is that the family meal has been on the decline in certain parts of the world for some years, even decades.

Take a look at these statistics:

• In the 1960’s, average mealtimes were around 90 minutes (USA). The average in 2019 is just 12 minutes.
• A survey by YouGov Omnibus (UK) put the percentage of children who eat their breakfast or dinner on the sofa in front of the TV at 34% and 42% respectively.
• A survey by the Harris Poll in 2016 (USA) revealed that 59% of Americans consider that they have fewer family meals than they did when growing up.

These headline numbers and the anecdotal evidence we all encounter seem to suggest that it’s clear that some Westernized countries are indeed seeing a decline in traditional family meals. However, the important word here is ‘some’, because this doesn’t seem to be true in all cultures.

European countries in particular (such as France, Spain and Italy for example) still place a very high emphasis on family meals and evidence suggests that this isn’t really changing with new generations as much as it seems to be elsewhere.

Again, I can vouch for some of this personally. Having a family connection to France and having spent a good deal of time with families and friends there, there’s one thing about any French house that is abundantly clear: the dining table is the heart and physical centre of the house. Yes, most houses have a TV, but it is usually hidden away in a secondary area somewhere, or sometimes a completely separate room.

In the UK especially, this tends to be the other way round. The very design of a family’s communal area can really affect how well families interact and a recent physical change in layout that we tried at home (effectively copying the ‘French’ system mentioned above) made an instant and enormous difference. It’s staying that way now, for good.

And do you know what? I’d still have a full family meal every night even if there was no scientific evidence to say it was a good thing and even if we spent the whole thing bickering about when homework is due. And you know why?

Because I love it.

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Further Reading, Sources and Credits

Many sources, polls, surveys and stories contributed indirectly to this story, but the direct quoting of numbers and scientific data came from these main four locations with my thanks:

Family Dinner Statistics, March 30, 2019

9 Scientifically Proven Reasons to eat Dinner as a Family, May 5, 2016

A third of children eat dinner in front of the TV, April 18, 2007

The Importance of Family Mealtime, FCC blog, 2014