from Rutgers University
We are reminded of the importance of family meals—not just for healthy food choices, but for family communication that might otherwise be missed in fractured eating habits of American households. Getting the message to busy parents in a way to convince them to spend more time at the dining room table is problematic at best. Not a small problem, since more than forty percent of the typical American food budget is spent on eating out. Researchers at Rutgers University evaluated more than sixty scientific reports on the association between family mealtime and children’s health. The more a family ate together, the less children consumed foods thought to be harmful to health. Children in such families also tended to weigh less.