Eating together helps families bond

Meals are better eaten with the people nearest and dearest to us!

Many of us have had our reunion dinners with our families and loved ones amidst these Chinese New Year festivities.

Food is such an integral part of our Asian culture that it’s even incorporated into our greetings: “Have you eaten?” In fact, eating together has a magical way of bonding people.

Doris Christopher, author of The Pampered Chef, said it all: “Over homemade casseroles or haute cuisine, relatives become loved ones and acquaintances become friends.

“The table is where we mark milestones, divulge dreams, bury hatchets, make deals, give thanks, plan vacations and tell jokes. It’s also where children learn the lessons that families teach: Manners, co-operation, communication, self-control values. Following directions. Sitting still. Taking turns. It’s where we make up and make merry. It’s where we live, between bites.”

Hence, the reunion is a tradition to be treasured and maintained for the sake of our next generation. In fact, to take it a step further, it should not just be an annual event. Having regular family meals together has many benefits.

Unfortunately, the routine family dinners seem to be a thing of the past. In today’s households where both parents go to work and kids have busy schedules with school, homework and an array of extracurricular activities, finding time for a gathering at the table is getting increasingly impossible.

Studies have shown time and again that eating together has many benefits beyond nutritional purposes for everyone concerned, especially for our teens and tweens.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, New York, reported that children who eat at least five times a week with their family are at lower risk of developing poor eating habits, weight problems or alcohol and substance dependencies, and tend to perform better academically than their peers who frequently eat alone or away from home.

In addition, the more frequent teens have dinner with their parents, the more likely they are to report talking to their parents about what’s going on in their lives.

According to research by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, teens who eat at the family table more often are more likely to show fewer signs of depression and feel that their family is more supportive, compared with teens who dine less often at home.

You are probably convinced now that having dinner together as a family is a good thing for your teens and tweens. It is, in fact, life-changing!

Dinner is the best indicator of how kids will fare in adolescence. The more frequently kids eat dinner with their families, the better they do in school, and the less likely they are to become sexually active, suffer depression, get involved with drugs or alcohol, or consider suicide.

Why? Maybe because families who eat together talk more, which helps them stay connected and build better relationships. Also, it could be because parents who show up to eat with their teens and tweens are more likely to express their love constructively in other ways, in the form of both attention and supervision.

Maybe because families who offer kids more structure are more likely to keep kids attending to their homework as well as out of trouble. Maybe because dinner transforms individual family members into a “group”, which gives parents more clout to rival the power of the peer group.

Or maybe because children, even more than the rest of us, need something to count on every day – the tangible security of belonging and being nurtured that is represented by the ritual of sharing food with those we love.

To quote clinical psychologist and parenting coach Dr Laura Markham: “Whatever the reason, family dinner is a pretty easy insurance policy to build into our home life.”

If we’re too busy to have dinner as a family regularly, we may want to re-examine our priorities. We probably are too busy. Period. While our smartphones and devices have brought us closer to the rest of humanity, it is the family that will stick with us through thick and thin.

It is simply amazing that something as simple as eating together as a family may bring manifold benefits to all family members. Family meals are for nourishment, comfort and support. As we nourish our body, we nourish our family relationships. After all, food is better eaten with the people we love!

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, yet another reason to celebrate and eat together. Eat and bond. Bon appétit!

Charis Patrick is a trainer and family life educator who is married with four children. Email her at [e-mail].