Gather ye round yon table, for eating with family keeps kids trim and tranquil

This holiday season, if you find yourself nagging your kids to join you at the table… keep at it. There is solid science backing you.

You may quote the adage, "The family that eats together stays together." But a new paper by Université de Montréal psychologist Prof. Linda Pagani published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics suggests there is much more than togetherness at stake.

Pagani has conducted several studies using data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, an ongoing province-wide multifocal survey of some 2,000 children born in 1998.

This time, she turned her attention to the matter of family mealtimes.

A mother's instinct, a scientist's quest

Reflecting on her motivation, Pagani told CBC Radio' One's Breakaway, "I think it's because I'm a mom. I said to myself, 'This is the thing. It all happens right here at the table.' It's not just because I'm Italian!"

Pagani's instinct about the importance of family meals was borne out by existing research, but she found some important knowledge gaps.

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Most prior studies of the effects of eating with the family were small-scale examinations of a few physical health outcomes.

Pagani thought she could address broader questions about children's well-being using the Quebec data. She put her student, Marie-Josée Harbec, to work on data for a subset of over 1,400 kids.

A question of quality

Pagani and Harbec began with a survey of parents conducted when the children were six years old. 

"We asked them about the frequency and characteristics of their mealtimes. Do people share their feelings? Is it a positive time? Are you happy to be there? Is it a safe place where you could talk about things? Is it a place where you feel good about being together?"

Pagani said these questions, based on well-established psychometric principles, helped measure the quality of family mealtimes — and not just their frequency as most past studies had done.

Benefits beyond BMI

Next, Pagani and Harbec looked at surveys conducted when the children had turned 10. They added the kids' and their teachers' responses to the mix. The results confirmed Pagani's hypotheses.

"At the end of Grade 4, more positive family meal environments were linked with better fitness attitudes and less soft drink consumption."

This validated the already-known link between higher family meal frequencies and lower childhood body mass index. But the benefits went beyond physical health.

"The kids were less oppositional and more prosocial. They were less physically and reactively aggressive, which is a really nice thing," Pagani said.

Clarifying the connection

Pagani needed to be certain the positive impacts were connected to family mealtime quality. Fortunately, there was a lot of data to work with.

"We could control for a range of potential confounds," Pagani said, explaining that she accounted statistically for factors like the kids' sex and baseline health and temperament, their mothers' education levels and their family configurations.

With such factors removed from the picture, the link between children's family mealtime quality at age six and their overall well-being at age 10 became more clear.

Dinnertime diplomacy

Pagani attributed this effect to the function that family meals serve. "Mealtime is the time you transmit your attitudes about eating. If you make it a nice social experience, it's even good for digestion."

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Pagani added, "If it's a positive environment, we have more diplomatic children, which forecasts a nice adolescence. There's a reason why world leaders sign peace treaties at dinner tables!"

Food for thought

Pagani's takeaway is clear. Families must dine together more often.

Yet, she lamented, "Parents and children are eating less and less together. We have parents who are getting squeezed at work and stuck in traffic and missing meals."

Juggling a demanding career with family life, Pagani draws on personal experience to advise busy parents. "If you can't eat supper with the children, try to get yourself organized to have breakfast with them."

With fewer time constraints, languid family meals are likelier in the holiday season. But if you plan to catch up on your favourite soap over Christmas dinner, Pagani has a caveat.

"Screens have to be switched off. The TV kills conversation and you gain nothing."