Want a Closer Family? Eat Together

Dinner is about more than just the food you are eating. Eating together as a family is the emotional connecting point of the day. For busy families who are often running in different directions to work, school or sports activities, it’s more important than ever to reserve time to bond.

Read my article from the Orange County Register about family dinners here.

Connecting Beyond Family Dinner

In the Sunday, July 1, 2012 edition of the New York Times, I ran across an article by the authors of a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy this Spring. The authors of the study are Ann Meier, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, and Kelly Musick, Associate Professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University. While there are a number of studies linking family dinner time to good parenting outcomes, this study shows that there are other factors that play a role, and other ways to connect besides family mealtimes. This study might be a good reality check for parents of teens, who may be realizing family dinners are sometimes extremely difficult to corral busy teens and parents into.

Meier and Musick studied factors from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative sample of teens, surveyed twice in middle school and/or high school, and again in young adulthood, between 18 and 26. Both the teens and their parents answered detailed questions about family patterns, living arrangements, and income. They focused on how the frequency of family dinners correlated with these three indicators of adolescent well-being: depression, drug/alcohol use, and delinquency (this included a number of behaviors, such as shoplifting).

This study supported previous studies that if you check in at any one point in time with teens, then family dinners do correlate with higher levels of well-being. However, if the researchers dug deeper and controlled for additional ways in which the families who ate together and didn't eat together also tended to differ, interesting details came to light. These two types of families often had a different quality of relationship with their teen, including the amount of activities with a parent and teen, seeing movies together, helping with schoolwork/projects, monitoring curfews and clothing choices, and different parental resources (income, one vs. two parents in the household).

Without controlling for these other factors, 73% of teens in their sample who rarely ate dinner with parents reported drug and alcohol use, compared with 55% of teens who regularly ate dinner with parents. However, if the researchers controlled for these factors, the differences in alcohol/drug use was cut in half between the two groups, from 18% to 9%.

When the researchers looked at how family dinners affect teens over time, the benefits appeared thin for the impact of family dinners on drug and alcohol use, mental health,or delinquency rates. It may, however, impact other things that weren't tracked, such as healthy eating patterns. While eating meals together and visiting and relating with your teens during mealtime is always a positive, these researchers encourage parents to think creatively. Do dinner together as often as you can, but also realize that driving time, leisure activities together like seeing movies, and being involved in many other little ways with your teen at home also count. Don't feel guilty. Try to maximize your connections with your teen when and where you can, and meals are not the only place good connections can happen. The most important thing that needs to happen is your teen knowing you are available, interested, willing to listen, and care about them.

The Significance of Dinner

I love the Norman Rockwell painting of the family eating Thanksgiving dinner together. It just gives you a warm feeling inside to see them all seated together around the dinner table, connecting, and enjoying each other's company. As a structural family therapist, I have always been a big fan of eating dinner together as a family. As the fall season continues, it gives us a new chance to get healthy patterns about dinnertime going again that may have gotten disrupted over the summer.

These are busy times, and much of our day we are headed in different directions from our families: to work, school, lessons, sports, errands, etc. Dinner is more than about the food. It is the emotional connecting point of the day. Whether you have a family with children still at home, or have just a partner, sitting down together and breaking bread is a big deal. It gives you time to share a little about your day and adventures, and to hear about the day that your loved ones have had.

Get everyone involved in setting or clearing the table, cooking, serving, or cleaning up. Have age-appropriate expectations. If you have little ones with you, dinner may only get to last 10 minutes, but older children may do well with 20 minutes. Being a part of the family means helping with this evening ritual. It is something you can each look forward to. If you have a faith, take turns sharing a prayer or having a word of gratefulness before eating. You are the architect of your family, and you can decide to give your family more meaning and connection. This is just one of many ways to be intentional about making your home and your family a close, loving, and connected place that nurtures each of you.

Families are busy, and we need to be realistic. Family dinner may not be possible every night, but make it happen as often as you can. Even 3 or 4 nights a week makes a significant connection.

Keep it positive. Adults need to not whine and complain about work or other things. Set a positive tone, and take an interest in each person's day. Michelle Obama has explained how in the First Family, she asks each family member to share the rose (best part) and thorn (worst part) of their day. Sometimes I have everyone at my house share the funniest thing that occurred all day, or the most interesting. Don't use dinner as a time to lecture or berate. There are some terrific boxes of questions that children often enjoy as a part of the dinner ritual, too.

Even if you live alone, you can still make dinner time positive and sacred self-care time. Turn off the television. (Dinner should be a technology and phone-free zone.) Turn on some music. Eat slowly. Eat with reverence. Enjoy the experience. Light a candle. Use the china. You're worth it. This is about being your own best friend, whether you live alone or not. There is an emotional and spiritual aspect to eating in a reverent way, seated, not rushed, and aware.

Researchers, family therapists, and smart families agree- families that have dinner together multiple times per week are closer. Children and teens behave more responsibly and are better students. Fight to keep this important connecting point,the evening meal, as glue in your family. You'll be glad you did.

It's Not About The Food

Eating is such a symbolic act. For years, in working with teenaged girls in my counseling practice, I have observed what a big concern eating and body image are. Food, unlike other substances that people can avoid if they need to, has to be dealt with daily.In the Orange County Register this last month, I read a story about the skyrocketing obesity numbers for children and teens in Orange County, California, where I live and work. Clearly, there are some odd things going on with eating and food, and some of it isn't even about the food. It is about unexpressed emotion, boredom,family mealtimes becoming extinct, inactivity,exhaustion,emptiness and even spiritual needs.

Why do so many teen girls in our area overrestrict, binge,or misuse food? Why are so many adult women so at war with themselves over their weight and body image? Girls with eating disorders get skewed thinking about food, about control, and about their value. The social/media impact of a celebrity-focused culture and the picking apart of any imperfections doesn't make it any easier to grow up a girl here. How high do girls set standards for beauty and thinness when air-brushed magazine covers deliver fantasy that even those stars can't approach in person? Girls need a lot of support from parents to develop their skills, talents, and selves on other deeper levels. Most teens struggle with feeling that they have very little control. Let's help give our daughters positive ways to feel some leadership and control, rather than reducing their value to their weight.

As adults, we all have our own story with food. Many people have comfort foods.(What do you eat when you are upset?) Role-modeling healthy emotional patterns and not numbing emotional distress with eating is so important. This is one of those accountabilty areas where it really is what you do, not what you say. Teens will often tell me they are taking notice of their parents' food and exercise patterns.

As a family therapist, I am a big fan of family dinners, as often as you can. Light a candle, and have everyone share a high and low point of their day. You'll be surprised how much closer you will feel as a family. Little kids and teens, too, tell me they love this time to reconnect. I am realistic. I know it can't happen every night---not even in my family--- but do it as often as you can. Never use the dinner time to lecture, nag, grill, or berate the kids. Make it fun,light, and enjoyable, even if it's for 10-15 minutes. Try not to be the food police and monitor the amounts. As a family therapist, I am concerned about the connection between you and other family members. As children grow into teens, the connecting moments are fewer, so don't less these wonderful opportunities slip by.

I really enjoyed reading Geneen Roth's new book this week,'Women, Food, and God'. Geneen shares her own struggles with food, being overweight, losing the same pounds over and over, and coming to her own realization that it's not about the food. Facing our worst fears and dealing with what we really need emotionally and spiritually is the answer. Sometimes eating is the easiest or quickest response to a negative feeling, but it's not the best. Like most things in life, the easiest solution isn't the best one in this arena.

Weight is a complicated issue for lots of reasons. Some people lack accurate information on food choices, how to work with your metabolism, and plan meals that are convenient, fast and healthy. Some need better information on how many calories they can consume daily, how many calories they need to burn, or what a healthy weight range is for your body type. When this is the case, I often refer to my favorite dietician to work out a plan with my client.

Relationship issues also impact emotional eating. Your partner commenting on your weight or food choices makes some people mad. (Where are the brownies anyway?)
Parents and friends comments push girls to sneak eat or otherwise go underground on their use of food. Partners can sabotage healthier food or exercise patterns if they find the change threatening. Every relationship has a homeostatic set point, like the set point on your thermostat on your heating and air conditioning at home. Anything too far from the normal range gets your partner's attention.

Whether you are a permitter or restrictor with food, you want to be mindful of eating in a reverent way, with awareness and intention. Try not to work out feelings with food. Eat when you are not distracted or driving. Make food a social event when possible, remembering that the nutrition is only part of what you are needing. When grabbing for food, ask yourself if that is what you are REALLY needing. Many people eat late at night when they may need to go to sleep, or when feelings bubble up from the day.

Eating and connecting ourselves to others are potentially great rituals in our day. It's all about how you play it.And it's about so much more than food.