New Year: Looking Forward on Family Dinner and more

Goodbye 2012, you son of a bitch.
-- My good friend Julian Fleisher's Facebook reflection on New Year's Eve. Yes, it got a lot of "Likes."

With the Hurricane Sandy disaster and the tragic killings in Sandy Hook, the end of 2012 has surely been one of the more difficult times in recent memory. I remember when 9/11 happened; it stopped me in my tracks. As the parent of young children, as a New Yorker, as a professional and political person (I was teaching Public Policy at NYU that year), 9/11 turned my world-view upside down, even though I wasn't "personally" affected. This fall felt a bit like a flashback of that terrible fall 11 years ago. Though I feel deeply lucky and grateful that my family and loved ones are safe and sound, I was still struck by a need to reflect, take stock, and brood over what next steps I should or could take in light of these events.

I haven't been posting very much, in part because I have felt torn. So many of my emotions and thoughts were tied up in issues that were only tangentially related to family dinner, if at all. As a country, we need sane gun control. As world citizens, we must confront and act on climate change. As members of our community, we must look for ways to keep making a difference and help each other, neighbor by neighbor. On a personal level, I knew what to do: give time, give money, give blood, share a political petition or two, give some more money. But, other than a prompt to discuss these matters at the dinner table, how would those topics fit into this blog on family dinner?

Promoting family dinner and spreading the word about healthy eating at home and at school is still at the core of my work and advocacy. But there's a wider universe of solutions that can improve public health and the well-being and resiliency of children and adults in my community. In addition to nutrition and access to good food, we can and should talk about ideas like livable streets, urban gardening, green infrastructure, and ways to support children and adults with better education, safe streets and more economic opportunity.

I am pushing back against my old habits of dividing my alliances, which started back in middle school. I didn't think my "nerdy" school friends could possibly relate my "cooler" neighborhood friends, so I always tried to keep them separate. I've been inadvertently doing that by keeping my community activism separate from my work in promoting healthy food and family dinner. Foolishness really; it is all more connected that we realize. As this world of expanded social networks shows us, more is more. More friends, more connections, more topics clashing is not something to be afraid of. Synergies and big ideas are only possible when you mash-up unexpected skills, talents, and interests. I hope to do more of that this year, both online and off; I'll just have to try to figure out how.

Here's my idea for new beginnings in 2013: I'll keep the Eatdinner.org blog and the Eatdinner Facebook page focused specifically on healthy eating and the benefits of family dinner. I'll not shy away from my opinions on more diverse topics on Twitter (@eatdinner) or in person. I hope you'll continue to follow me in all these venues and that we can continue our conversations and debates together and learn from each other.

Despite the heartbreaks of 2012, in this new year, I am looking forward. I am re-thinking how to best channel my passions and advocacy into making the world, especially my local community, a better place. I am actively seeking opportunities to improve my community in Brooklyn and New York City--if you live or work nearby, I'd love to connect with you to discuss specific projects, or maybe just have coffee. If we already know each other in the blogosphere or from the neighborhood, feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn. Of course I'd love to have you follow me here, on Facebook, or Twitter.

Here is to a bright, happy and healthy 2013!

Why Family Dinner

Why family dinner? With all the problems in the world, really, why focus on family dinner? Even if you were to restrict your view to all the food-related problems in the world, there are so many to choose from: hunger, obesity, pesticides in food, E.coli contamination, unsafe and environmentally unsound food production practices, to name just a few. So why, of all things, would you focus on family dinner?

I focus on family dinner because it is a solution. It is actually one of the only solutions that has ever been shown to have a consistent and 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.

The research shows that families that eat dinner together do, in fact, eat better. They tend to eat more fruits and vegetables, and all members of the family are less likely to be obese. The direction of causality is unclear, but I think that once you make the commitment to eating dinner together as a family, you naturally start cooking more and making better health choices. There seems to be something about the ritual and routine of family dinner that supports healthier choices.

Plus, family dinner is not  a bad-tasting medicine. Once you get into the groove, it's actually fun and rewarding for adults and children alike to have regular meals together. A public health intervention that involves family connectedness, laughter and the potential of healthy delicious food? Where do I sign up?

Another reason to promote family dinner is because buying, cooking and serving food to your family directly connects to many broader economic, social and health issues. The promotion of family meals, then, can indirectly increase awareness about important related food and health issues. As I argued recently, once people are sitting down around the table and give a damn about what they are eating, you have a far greater pool of folks for which "good food" matters. Step by step, people become more aware of issues with the food system and the environment. Then, perhaps, they will be ready to advocate for better safeguards and subsidies and to vote with their wallets for better food for their families. Family dinner can be an important first step.

So can family dinner be a movement? Can more people see family dinner as a cause? There are so many wonderful food bloggers out there, many of them tacitly promoting family dinner with home-cooked food everyday. Working the other side of the issue, there are public health and environmental policy advocates tirelessly trying to bring attention to the threatened food system from government regulators, Big Food, Agri-business, and the press. Then there are nutritionists, school food reformers and community gardeners who have there own take on a common theme:  good food can solve problems. Family dinner can be both a tool for change and an umbrella under which like-minded reformers can find common ground.

The call for family dinner can seem simplistic to some, but sometimes simple solutions work. Join us in supporting family dinner: leave a comment, follow by email (box on side bar), or follow us on Twitter @eatdinner. 

Sharing Stories about Family Dinner

One of the initiatives I'm working on at eatdinner.org is to collect personal stories about family dinner. Whenever I mention that I work on family dinner, I get wonderful feedback about what a difference family dinner makes. (I also get knee-jerk guilty apologies, which are totally unnecessary!)  Sometimes the driving force behind family dinner is a health problem, such as the child has a food allergy or the father was diagnosed with high cholesterol. Sometimes one or both parents just believe in it and jump through all the necessary hoops to make it happen, several nights a week. Always I hear that it is worth the effort in terms of staying connected with your partner and you kids,

Much of public health research is all about the numbers:

• How many calories are consumed with an average school lunch?  What are proportions of fat, sodium etc?
• How many people are obese? 
• What is the percentage of kids who have tried drugs or alcohol, and at what age?

But narrative stories are important too and can be studied systematically. Qualitative research can often lend the interesting details and point out true themes and rationales behind health choices that the statistics miss.

• Are people eating family dinner more because of the recession?

A statistic may tell you yes or no, but only narrative stories can tell us what family are getting out of eating dinner together more often and whether it is a temporary solution or potentially a more long-lasting trend. The stories may help us understand what exactly it is about family dinner (or breakfast or lunch, for that matter) that provides the protective glue within a family.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be developing a structured interview to share family dinner stories. I hope you'll add your voice to help us create a rich narrative of family dinner. In the meantime, please visit the eatdinner.org Facebook page (Like us!) and add your thoughts under the Discussion section. Or feel free to add in the comments below. Thank you!

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?

Lessons from Research: Who's Working on Family Dinner

The researchers who work on family dinner are a varied sort. They come from nutrition and food science schools, from medical schools, from schools of public health and schools of nursing, and from a wide range of programs in social work, sociology, and psychology. Each of these disciplines come at the research from a different perspective, but findings are surprisingly similar. Family dinner offers a protective effect for kids and teenagers, be it less risk-taking activities, like smoking and underage drinking, more positive actions like improved eating habits and better grades, or just improved general well-being.

The next frontier of research, I think, is to bring the detailed findings of these studies out from inside the ivory tower. Let's figure out how to translate the research into action that goes beyond the occasional pep talk. We need to find out how to both encourage and support families who are trying to create a family dinner routine for their families. Do they need more information about healthy choices at the grocery stores and navigating the choices among prepared foods?  Advice on 20-minute meals cooked at home and menu planning? Do they need help with their family relationships so that everyone chips in? Do they simply need more time? More time might mean flexible and supportive work environments that allow them to go home by 5 or 6pm at night. Probably, all of the above.

Health education campaigns sound so easy, but effective campaigns to change individual health behaviors are notoriously difficult to craft.  It can be also hard to measure their effectiveness or translate what works in one community to another. Nevertheless, the benefits of family dinner are well worth a concerted effort to better promote them.

Select List of Academic Research Centers Working on Family Dinner
The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), Columbia University,
Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Chairman
Founders of National Family Day
Report on The Important of Family Dinner

University of Minnesota, School of Public Health
Project EAT. Principal Investigator: Diane Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD
Other Research Projects

Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity
Eat Healthy New Haven
Other Research Projects

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
The Pampered Chef Family Resiliency Program Center,  Barbara Fiese, Ph.D., Director

Harvard Pilgrim Heath Care Institute, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Obesity Prevention Program


International Association of the Study of Obesity (iaso), Europe
The ENERGY Project

Cornell Food Lab
Food Psychology and How, Why, When and How Much We Eat, Brian Wansink, Ph.D., Director

Baylor College of Medicine
Children's Nutrition Research Center, Dennis Bier, MD., Director

Family dinner as public health intervention: we need to know more

Is family breakfast as good as family dinner? Warning: This is a research question.

Family dinner is important, almost everyone agrees. There are many "feel-good" stories about family dinner scattered through cyberspace as well as hard-boiled facts about how kids who eat with their families fare better on a variety of measures. I, and others, even argue that family dinner can be good for the parents and significant others involved, too. All this, true. But is that all there is to it?

Lately, I've been trying to think about family dinner more like a social scientist or public health researcher. (That's my background, after all.) If you drill down into the concept of family dinner, you can think of eating dinner together as an intervention. Studies show that the "intervention" of family dinner does indeed contribute to better outcomes on a wide variety of measures, including lower engagement in risky behaviors like underage drinking, better relationships with parents and siblings, and reduced risk of suicide (data here). This is an important message to promote, but why does family dinner work? How does it work? Can we decipher what aspects of family dinner are critical to its overall success? Can breakfast count too?

The National Children's Health Survey collects data on how often children eat together with their families as well as a variety of outcome measures. Several university research centers (CASA, University of Minnesota, Harvard, to name a few) focus on the topic of family nutrition, family dynamics, and family dinner as related to specific behaviors. There is some great research out there, but the specifics rarely make it to the general audiences of parents struggling to get meals to the table or to make mealtime enjoyable, not just a battle.

I personally believe that family dinner is an answer to many critical issues we experience personally and that we experience as a society. I know it is difficult for busy families to pull it off, but I feel the effort is well worth it. Family dinner doesn't really lend itself to policy change, but it is connected to positive health behavior. Basically, I'm arguing that this is a topic that is worthy of more in-depth research, study, and discussion on a broad level. We need to figure out why family dinner works, how it works, and how best to support families of all income levels in creating mealtime traditions that support growth and development for kids, parents, and families overall. 

Child Trends Data Bank on Family Meals
Family Meals Matter Facebook Fan Group