Eating together as a family may not just improve relationships but good health as well. So says a study conducted by the University of Illinois. The study which got published in the Journal Pediatrics suggests that sitting down with the family and having at least three meals a week can do a lot to a child's weight. Family eating can reduce the risks of becoming obese and inculcate healthy eating habits.
The researchers claim that eating together can also help avoid other eating disorders in children. Because parents will be able to notice any abnormal behaviours such as disordered eating exhibited by children and hence correct it then and there itself. Disordered eating is one of the signs of developing eating disorder in the future.
In the study, the authors have mentioned a few types of disordered eating and they include:
- Bingeing/purging
- Deliberate vomiting
- Fasting
- Missing meals
- Taking diet pills
- Taking up smoking as a weight loss strategy
- Under-eating
- Using diuretics
- Using laxatives
This study can be considered as a first that concentrates on family eating and nutritional health. Andrew j Hammonds, one of the researchers states that, "Overall, families that eat five or more meals together have children who are around 25 percent less likely to encounter nutritional health issues than children who eat one or no meal with their families. Shared family meals seem to operate as a protective factor for overweight, unhealthy eating, and disordered eating."
For the purpose of the study, the researchers observed results of 17 other researches on child nutrition and eating patterns involving around 182,000 kids and this included teenagers. The authors found a connection between shared family meals and good eating habits. The study revealed that children eating with family at least five times a week had a 35 percent lower chance of getting into disordered eating when compared to children who did not.
