During the debates of the Scientific Council of the National Movement “I’m living healthy, too!” – SETS, initiated by the PRAIS Foundation with the purpose of preventing childhood obesity, the lifestyle is approached holistically as being a broad concept that integrates our attitudes towards life, intimately linked to health, to the well-being of an individual. From this association, the concept of healthy lifestyle was born. The relationships in life are created through the process of socialization, therefore:
- Family meals help develop language and social skills. Children learn to politely interact and discuss various topics during mealtime interaction.
- Some studies correlate the interaction within family meals with the school performance of children and with a reduced risk of infant obesity and other nutritional diseases.
- Children learn to cook and be well-ordered – skills that many adults today do not have – which makes them feel unbalanced.
- Family meals help family cohesion and unity. Families are micro-universes that have their own cultures – and interaction during meals helps develop the sense of belonging, a critical sense for children and their development.
“What we eat, with whom we eat, where we eat are aspects that have an important psychological component. Eating together goes far beyond nutrition. This valuable time is an opportunity to communicate, change opinions, joke, laugh. These are moments where you can express affection, emotions, moods, moments in which you can strengthen the bonds between parents and children, between brothers, where each person sitting at the table can contribute to knowing each other “, says psychologist Aurora Liiceanu.
In 1993, Oprah Winfrey conducted an experiment – “Dinner in the Family”: five families voluntarily accepted the challenge of having dinner each evening, for one month, staying at least half an hour, each time. All family members were required to keep a journal in which they recorded their opinions and feelings about the experiment. At first, having dinner together was perceived as a drudgery for most, and the time spent together seemed somewhat boring. But after a month, the families were very happy and had made the voluntary decision to continue – outside the experiment – to have dinner together each evening. When families appeared on Oprahe Winfrey’s show at the end of the experiment, the biggest surprise was for parents to find out how much their children liked and appreciated the time spent together at the table.
Family meals help children achieve better school results. This is what a study * from 1994, by Louis Harris and Associates shows. The study was conducted on 2000 high school students who were tested to measure their schooling abilities. Thus, students taking family dinners 4 or more times a week recorded better school results than those who had meals together 3 and less than 3 times a week.
The study of the Harvard researchers, which tracked 65 children for 8 years, analyzed which of their activities (including playing, reading stories, family events, and other factors) helped them in their further development – family dinners came out first.
Also, a recent 10-year study conducted at Columbia University’s National Center for Addictions and Drug Abuse shows that children who regularly have family meals (five times or more per week) are 50% less at risk of smoking or consuming drugs later in life than their friends who rarely eat with their family.
“The rythm of life, social issues and the system of values make their mark on socialization. We see today how for children and young people, in particular, internal socialization – with family, relatives – a process that has positive effects on personality development and the assimilation of certain preferences and values, succumbs in favor of external socialization, the one with friends and colleagues. Once children grow up, external socialization “rivals” internal socialization, with children spending more and more time alone or with friends, including on the internet “, says Aurora Liiceanu.
An important aspect of family meals is the division of tasks, everyone’s involvement in preparing the meal, the distinction between regular meals and festive meals, cooperation to create a pleasant ambience. For children, taking part in these events means to provoke their imagination and creativity, passing the “cultural heritage” of the family, of which “culinary patrimony” is part, with specific recipes and customs. They all build family memory. Children can be stimulated to express their tastes, preferences, desires, the need to experiment and, as such, participating in the role of co-authoring this heritage and even gaining a “label” due to specialization: cakes made by the mother can compete with those made by the daughter, etc.
“Of course, the time budget is important. Children often have a different program than parents. They come home at different times. However, family meals are served in the evenings, weekends, legal holidays, onomastics, vacations – as opportunities to stay with the family, at least to eat, communicate and establish relationships between those who are close even around the children ” , added Aurora Liiceanu.
Family meal can be an exercise in combining tradition with innovation, each contributing to the pleasure of staying in the family and getting to know your family, but it can also be an important cultural transfer.
We find that the expression “Come and eat!” – when the mother is in the kitchen and family members reunite at her call, often arriving late, to her annoyance – has no relational value, it excludes children even from the relation that takes place when things are done together: talking, learning, changing opinions, expressing preferences.
“A meal can mean both flowers and colorful napkins. It can become a perceived event in its different meanings: a pleasing every day – meal, an onomastics, a meal that brings all of us together on Sundays, a meal amidst nature on family vacation. An ordinary meal or a festive meal can always be a pleasant surprise. The culinary culture is more complicated than we think. It makes a subtle blend between nature and culture”, concludes Aurora Liiceanu.
This material was produced with the support of Ms. Aurora Liiceanu – psychologist, member of the Scientific Council of the National Movement “I’m living Healthy, too!” – SETS, www.sets.ro, initiated by the PRAIS Foundation.
*) Wildavsky, R. “What’s behind success in school?” Reader’s Digest. October 1994. Pages 49-55.
**) Carter, Jaine and James D. Carter, Scripps Howard News Service. “Eating Together Strengthens Family Ties.”