Do you wish your teen or preteen had healthier eating habits? Then you may want to make sure you schedule regular family dinners. According to Harvard researchers, children aged 9 to 14 who eat a family dinner are more likely than their peers to consume fruits and vegetables and less likely to drink soda or chow down on fried, high-fat or sugar-laden foods. The findings are from a study of more than 16,000 boys and girls.

The study participants who sat down to family dinners also tended to have slightly higher intake of calories but also had a higher intake of fiber and many nutrients, including calcium, folate, vitamins B6, B12, C and E and iron. Overall, 43% of the youngsters ate dinner with their families every day, 40% on most days, and 17% rarely if ever. While about half of 9-year-olds ate dinner with their families, only a third of 14-year-olds did so. The more often a child ate dinner with their family, the healthier their eating patterns appeared to be.

The findings thus suggest that eating family dinner could lead to fewer ready-made dinners, which in turn results in a better-quality diet. Surveys suggest that family dinners have declined in recent decades, possibly due to an increasing number of women in the workplace, as well as the continued role of women as the primary preparers of family dinners. The authors emphasize, however, that healthy family dinners are not impossible for working parents to achieve.

The researchers note that even when women work, family dinners are still possible to a certain extent. Research shows that working women can have as much of an impact on nutritional quality as those who don't work.Close to 90% of the mothers of children in the study worked.

Archives of Family Medicine March 2000