B4FD Reflections: Family Dinner & Health

This month, Blog for Family Dinner founders will reflect back on some lessons learned from our B4FD guest bloggers over the past year. This week, I'm offering my reflections.

Family dinner is a wonderful way for kids and families to stay connected; that's something we at B4FD talk about all the time. I believe that family dinner also has the potential to improve the broad health of society. Family dinner has been shown to be effective in addressing many health challenges ranging from childhood obesity to risky behaviors in teens to self-esteem issues to adolescent depression. Coming from a background in public health, that's one reason family dinner resonates with me. A positive health intervention that can change the lives of millions for little to no cost? Something that, once your family gets into the routine of it, can be fun, rewarding and good-for-you? Family dinner is the opposite of medicine, but it has the potential to bolster the health of our nation, especially our children. Yes, it's that important.

So, my B4FD reflection centers on Elizabeth Brotherton's (PreventObesity.net) post, Keeping Kids Healthy, One Meal at a Time. Her post captures the "touch-feely" reasons for embracing family dinner as well as citing the scientific research that backs this "gut" feeling many of us have. She writes

...it's often those memories of time at the table with my own family that keeps me motivated. In my gut, I know that people are more likely to have a healthier relationship with food if they spend time with it —preparing it, serving it, taking time to eat it (rather than just shoving it down from the drive thru). 

As it turns out, my instincts are backed by scientific research. A growing body of evidence shows that children who regularly eat meals with their family are less likely to be obese. 

In one major national study, 4-year-old children who ate dinner with their family six or seven days a week had a 25 percent lower risk of obesity compared to kids who ate dinner with their family less frequently. Other studies also have found that adolescents who regularly eat family meals are less likely to be obese. 

Read Elizabeth's full post here:  Keeping Kids Healthy, One Meal at a Time 

Today, Monday September 24, 2012, is also CASA's Family Day, established over a decade ago as a way to remind parents that family dinner was an effective way to stay connected with their kids. CASA research has shown many times over that frequent family dinners reduce the likelihood that teens will engage in risky behaviors, as well as improving family relationships and performance at school. CASA's Family Day is an important campaign we champion at B4FD, though we know reducing illegal drug and alcohol use among teens is just one of the important benefits of family dinner. Family meals can mean happier, healthier families and a healthier society as well, and that's something to celebrate!

Celebrate Family Dinner with #B4FD Teleseminar

Yesterday my B4FD colleague Kathleen Cuneo hosted a great teleseminar on "all things family dinner" to celebrate and promote the launch of Family Dinner Month (9.26-10.24.11) on the Blog for Family Dinner. It was great to be joined by Billy Mawhiney of Time at the Table, Aviva Goldfarb of The Scramble, Jennifer Schiff from The Family Dinner Book, and John Sarrouf from The Family Dinner Project.

Celebrate Family Dinner with #B4FD Teleseminar, 9.20.11 (audio recording)

We talked about current research in the field, including many studies that show that family dinner and communal eating is not just for kids. Indeed, everyone benefits, including parents, couples without children, seniors, and even college-aged students. We talked about tips and time-savers, like meal planning and getting everyone to chip in, and overall, about how best to make the commitment to family dinner.

A big theme was re-defining family dinner so that it works for you. Don't be intimidated by the rosy, nostalgic idea that family dinner has to be a 3 course meal with homemade apple pie at the end (though that's always nice!) A realistic weeknight meal is more like soup and salad, easy one-pot meals, or quick pasta dishes. What is important, really, is finding time together and making the family table a safe, consistent gathering place. Setting a routine and sticking to it helps, be it 3 days a week or every single day.

The teleseminar will be available for listening (free) on the Blog for Family Dinner website through the month promotion (now until October 24, 2011) and also available to subscribers of Kitchen Table Parents.

If you believe in family dinner, please be sure to add your name to our subscriber list and to follow our blog posts next month. You can also check in with Facebook or Twitter (@blog4famdinner). More ideas to spread the word about #B4FD here. Thank you for your support!

Back to School, Back to the Family Table (#B4FD)

September is "Family Dinner" month which is perfect timing in one sense: as kids get back to school, we naturally begin to re-think routines and priorities. Yet, it is terrible timing in another sense: the fall is often crammed with new schedules, new transitions and new commitments. This may be the busiest time of year, and without a clear plan, family dinner may be the first thing to go or the last thing you want to add to a crammed schedule. Nonetheless, when the crazy-iness dies down, family dinner can be there to provide structure and sanity, and to give you and your kids a good foundation all year.

Remember, family dinner is not bad-tasting medicine. It can combine family connectedness, laughter, and even healthy, delicious food--what's bad about that? Family dinner is also one of the only public health solutions that has ever been shown to have consistent positive effect on multiple health and social issues, such as obesity, underage alcohol and drug abuse, social disconnectedness, low school performance, and unhealthy relationships to food.

That's why Joseph Califano set up Family Day with CASA over ten years ago, and celebrated this year on Monday, September 26, 2011. After a lifetime of studying health problems, including the debilitating affects of drug and alcohol abuse, he wanted to trumpet family dinner as a positive step that every family could take. In 2011, my colleagues and I are spreading the word and connecting with families in a new way: Blog For Family Dinner, a month-long promotion from September 26 to October 24, 2011. We know that drug abuse prevention is not the only "good thing" that comes from family dinner. There are a whole host of "here and now" reasons as well as other long-term benefits to family meals and family connectedness.

I hope you will join us in the Family Dinner movement by supporting and following the B4FD project. Talk about family dinner with your friends and colleagues, talk about what it means to you, how you make it work, what challenges you face, and offer support and lend advice to one another. Sharing ideas and excitement can help you make the commitment to family dinner.

Read more about the importance of fitting family dinner into the back-to-school routine in this profile:

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? by Kim Seidel, Fall 2011

Strength of Family Ties: Results from CASA Family Dinner Study 2010

Teens want to eat dinner with their families and family dinner strengthens ties among parents and teens, according to CASA's most recent study. All this makes sense: family dinner gives us the time and space as parents to connect to our kids and listen to them. It helps to have family time be something teens can "count on" rather than a random event. As much as teens want "their own lives," they both need and want to be connected. Family dinner is a way to do it, and it's never too late to start!

Here are some key findings from CASA's national adolescent survey.

• 60% of teens have dinner with their family 5  or more times a week. This statistic has been steady from most of the past decade.
• 75% of teens talk to their parents at dinner about their lives.
• 80% of parents agree that dinner helps them learn more about their teen's life.
• Teens who frequently have dinner with their families (5 or more nights a week) are twice as likely to talk to their parents about their lives than are teens who infrequently have dinner with family (2 or less nights a week).
• Most teens (60%) want to have dinner with their families more often.
• 72% of teens think family dinner is important.
• Kids who frequently have dinner with their parents are less likely to use drugs, smoke, or drink alcohol. Of these kids, 70% reply that one reason is that they know their parents would be upset.

Family Dinner Contributes to the Strength of Family Ties. This year CASA added a new dimension to the survey to measure the strength of family ties and how that was related to illegal drug and alcohol use among teens. Stronger family ties resulted in less likelihood to use drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. Family dinner contributed to stronger family ties independently and by influencing two other component of the scale, as noted below.

• Teens who had frequent family dinners were 3x more likely to report an excellent relationship with both mom and dad. 
• Teens who had frequent family dinners were 2x more likely to report that their parents were good at listening to them.

Source: CASA, The Importance of Family Dinners, IV, September 2010. Full Report available by pdf.

Translating Family Dinner Research into Action

One of the things that I aspire to do with my work on this eatdinner blog/twitter/facebook page is to help translate research on family dinner into action. The statistics on the benefits of family dinner shouldn't just be empty slogans or exhortations of guilt directed toward busy families. The personal benefits of family dinner for you and your kids are important, but from a public health perspective, the societal benefits are even greater. Less kids doing drugs and drinking, more kids doing well in school, less childhood obesity: these positive outcomes affect the whole community and the whole country.

I know from experience that the academic research community puts a lot of effort into studying problems and identifying determinants of health, but often gives short shrift to actually developing and implementing solutions.  I just read a recent literature review in the Journal of American Dietetic Association that found that only a quarter of the studies on Weight Loss Management had any mention of real-world adoption or maintenance of the weight-loss strategies studied. The authors concluded that it was unknown what popular strategies could actually work becuase real-world adoption was not effectively considered. If you are not thinking about real-world adoption, especially in an area like weight-loss, why study these strategies at all?

Many research studies that mention family dinner end with a statement like "Family dinner is important and this message should be shared with the public." Gee, thanks. Can we get a little more detail please? I think the research community should go to the next level. The identification of key elements of family dinner success and the persistent barriers to family meal times would be a good start. There is also important work to be done assessing how public information and education on family dinner should be tailored regionally or by socioeconomic or cultural group.

Perhaps it's only fair to expect community-based organizations or policymakers to take up where the researchers have left off. CASA, a national research center, has done an amazing job with their annual Family Day campaign and getting key statistics out to the media. But one day is not enough; family dinners require a concerted commitment and attention throughout the year.

The best support for family dinner at this point has been from the social community of the Internet, with blog/twitter/facebook commentators weighing in on everything from menu planning to easy weeknight recipes to parenting support. To Malcolm Gladwell, I say, don't undestimate the power of weak ties and social networks. Spreading information and collaboration can do more than you think to change the world, though it may not be as dramatic as sit-ins during the civil rights movement.

Let's use the power of this social network to collaborate and learn from each other. What ideas do you have to help families make the commitment to family dinner?

Family Dinner Day 2010: Celebrate, Move Forward

Plan to have dinner with your family this Monday, September 27, 2010 as part of CASA's National Family Dinner Day. I know this is preaching to the choir, because many readers and followers are having dinner with their families (almost) every night anyway. Still, take a moment to reflect on why family dinner is important to you and to pat yourself on the back for making the effort for yourself and your family. Then, think about what we can do to promote family dinner more widely.

The media laments that "no one" eats dinner together anymore and that our busy lives are to blame. There are periodic news stories or articles that run down the statistics on why it is important for kids and their families to have meals together and gloss over the various barriers to family dinner: technology, work schedules, sports schedules, commuting, to name a few. Yet, those who actually have dinner with their families can feel isolated, as if modern busy families are all too focused on other tasks to bother with the routine of family dinner.

I have had many people thank me for working on this issue, for publicly supporting family dinner as important. I almost feel like "family dinner" is in the closet. The people who have family dinner are loathe to talk about it, feeling perhaps like they represent some throw-back, traditional family or that they would be "bragging" to admit this special feat.  Then families who aren't able to swing dinner together very often, for whatever reason, may feel guilty or defensive that they aren't meeting some "family dinner standard." So they don't want to talk about it either.

These little demons cut both ways:

"Gosh, you must have such a boring, un-busy life if you can manage family dinner every night. Do you wear an apron too?"
"Do you realize that not having dinner every night with your kids will doom them to failure for life?! Little Johnny will probably be doing drugs by the time he is 10. Are you ready to live with that?"
"Only well-off, upper middle classes families can afford the time and money it takes to put family dinner together."
"Only low-income immigrant families eat dinner together."
"My kids need sports and afterschool activities to be healthy and competitive in high school and college. These things are good for them; how can they possibly do both?"

Guilt, as the new age gurus say, is a useless emotion, though one that I, as a lapsed Catholic who married a Jew, know a lot about. Family dinner is not about guilt; it's not even about doing what's right for your kids, although that is a happy side bonus. I think it's what's right for mom and dad too as part of building a family life. My motto is: try family dinner, make it a priority, give it a chance. Talk about it, share stories and support and recipes with other families. Family dinner norms for 2010 are not a "Norman Rockwell" scene, but something quite different. It's about finding that happy medium of "busy, yet got your priorities straight," a balance that seems so hard to manage for parents today.

The bottom line is: Many families are not eating dinner together and we need to decipher why not. There are obvious reasons: families are busy and crunched for time and money. But like the obesity paradox, where low income families who do not have enough food are also likely to be obese rather than stick-thin, I think there is more to it than that. From a public health perspective, more can and should be done to influence, support, and encourage families at all income levels to make the effort to create healthy family dinner traditions. So promote National Family Dinner Day (09.27.10), live what you preach and spread the message. 

Friday Family Dinner Fan Club: Miriam Weinstein

The Surprising Power of Family Meals, by Miriam Weinstein

 Today I have to give a shout-out to Miriam Weinstein, author of The Surprising Power of Family Meals. Written in 2005, it is one of the only popular books out there that tries to bridge the research of family dinner with tips that families can really use. It is a well-written inspiration that I reccomend to anyone who cares about food and family. I read it in 2007 when I started this blog and it was relatively hard to find. Weinstein seemed like a voice in the wilderness, someone trying to get at the nitty-gritty of family dinner beyond the platitudes, but it was unclear who was listening. I could never find much follow-up writing about it by her after the book was written.

Recently, thanks to a J.M. Smuckers company endorsement, she's been give a new slick web platform to spread the word of family dinner at The Power of Family Meals. It's sort of a funny partnership, but I guess Smuckers feels like this is an authentic way to promote breakfast as a family meal. In a similar vein, Stouffer's launched the Let's Fix Dinner media campaign and website this year, created in partnership with CASA, one of the longest-running family dinner advocates. CASA, founded by Joseph Califano in the early 1990s, is the research group responsible for many of the oft-cited statistics that family dinner is a protective factor against teenage alcohol and substance abuse.

What does it mean that big corporations are espousing family dinner? While part of me is skeptical, there is a big part of me that welcomes the money and resources that big companies bring in promoting what I see as an essential good. For major brands that sell food products at supermarkets, it is a positive trend if people eat at home more. I think the more people eat at home, the more routine it becomes and the better they'll like it. So first steps are important. I worry when the promoters are selling relatively unhealthy processed foods, but sometimes convenience foods may be necessary in order to get something on the table for dinner. There has to be a balance. Perhaps the more healthy foods, like vegetables, fruits, and whole grains need their own champion marketers, funded by the CDC, a consortium of California growers, or a major health foundation like Robert Wood Johnson. Or basic home cooking versus reheating convenience foods has to become a more common and valued skill.

The experts like Weinstein and CASA have a responsibility to make sure the message of the importance of family meals gets out there without too many strings attached to the processed foods themselves. Stouffer's pizza for dinner or Smuckers jam on toast for breakfast are not the only way. Both these campaigns, though, seem to hit the balance very well, and are excellent and authentic in the information they present. So far, so good.  I'm glad to seeing Weinstein on a bigger platform, touting the importance of family dinner in her approachable and non-judgmental style.

Social Responsibility Stouffer's Style

Image from Stouffer's Let's Fix Dinner

I stumbled upon "Let's Fix Dinner" by Stouffer's and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. I’ve only gone through a couple of the family stories, but it was very moving and dare-say inspiring. Yes, it brought tears. But of course, this is an issue I feel passionate about. Though it’s a Stouffer’s branded website and You-Tube channel, I did not see one Stouffer’s product in the first set of videos (The Joneses), so kudos to them for some restraint and authenticity. The second set, The Bensons, did have one quick screen grab of a Stouffer's box of something. And, who knows, by the end of the series, they may be all in Stouffer's costumes, jumping up and down and giving a cheer!

The meals, for the most part, were all home-cooked from real ingredients. They were basic American fare of hamburgers, lasagna, and pasta. Maybe not the healthiest choices, but families may need to start in a comfort zone. Just getting to the table can be a challenge, and once that is accomplished, more healthy meals can be the next goal.

More important, family dinner was shown as fitting into the families' busy everyday lives, with a few bumps along the way. One very real moment included the realization of the Jones family that they didn’t have a dinner table big enough to fit them all! The next scene shows the family en masse going out to buy one. In the Benson family, mom had to be encouraged to simply "sit down," which I think is a metaphor for many a harried parent. Sometimes the kids were in total melt-down and refused to even come to the table. But overall, the families are surprised how fast and effective family dinners were in establishing connections and improving family life. The kids literally soaked it up and their faces show how happy they are to have this "simple" family ritual. It takes a commitment and an investment, but family dinner reaps rewards.

Can big food promote socially responsible messages? For this campaign, Stouffer's teamed up with CASA, the family dinner advocates at the Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse at Columbia, so that may be why there's such great messaging. While Stouffer's prepared foods are known to be high in fat and sodium, but it's also important to acknowledge that sometimes shortcuts are necessary. French Bread pizza (which brings back childhood memories for me) and a green salad is still better than take-out.

Clearly, Stouffer's would rather increase sales of their frozen dinner products than let those dollars go to fast food or restaurant outlets. Still, I would argue that this campaign is at the very least a nice gesture to throw some corporate dollars and support toward promoting the social good of family dinner. I hope the videos and commercials are compelling enough to inspire families to get around the dinner table regardless of what they decide to eat.

Let's Fix Dinner Home Page

You Tube Stouffer's channel: Let's Fix Dinner

CASA's National Family Dinner Night, 9.27.2010

Stouffer's Attempts to "Fix Dinner", BrandWeek, 2.10.10

Another Blogger's View: New Breed of Advertisers Post on Stouffer's Let Fix Dinner, 03.10