Does Your Family Eat Dinner Together?

Family dinner hour, once an institution in Canadian homes, is becoming a quaint relic among time-starved parents and kids. This according to at least a half-dozen recent reports from top universities, research firms and think-tanks, all of which paint a picture of families in crisis at the dinner table.

Or, more accurately, away from it.

The latest studies -- one from from Harvard Medical School, the other from Columbia University -- cite the family-dinner deficit as a contributing factor in childhood obesity, teen substance abuse, poor academic performance and increased household stress.

The problem has apparently grown to such proportions that a Canadian company -- with written support from Prime Minister Paul Martin, no less -- is organizing the country's first National Family Dinner Night. M & M Meat Shops is asking parents to make pledges on its Web site to dedicate the evening of Nov. 3 to breaking bread with loved ones.

While the online formality might sound silly to some, experts say a modern family needs all the help it can get when it comes to organizing dinner.

"Kids are participating in a ton of extracurricular activities these days," says pediatrician Elsie Taveras, lead researcher of the Harvard study of 14,355 youth. "You can imagine how that increased demand on our time is impacting the ability to get anyone together, let alone an entire family."

A survey released this week by Decima Research for the Holmes Group (marketer of Rival and Crock Pot slow cookers) indicates more than half of Canadians believe they don't have time to plan or execute a dinner event for family and friends. A full 30% cited dinner preparation as the most stressful element behind such a gathering.

A separate survey of Canadian women, released this week by Leger Marketing for Palm Canada, similarly found 21% of married mothers consider putting dinner on the table to be the most stressful activity in their day.

But Ms. Taveras's report, published in this month's issue of the journal Pediatrics, nonetheless calls for doctors to recommend family dinners as an ongoing health initiative.

"We understand the stresses and demands on people's time," Ms. Taveras says. "But our work has shown that if you eat family dinners more often, you have better diet quality and you're less likely to be overweight."

In Canada, there are even "coaches" available to get you started.

Lynn Fraser, founder of Families Are Worth It in Edmonton, says part of her job as a work-life balance coach is to teach families how to plan a meal. She covers everything from turning off the TV to changing "dinner logistics" (for example, eating dessert first) to offering conversation starters.

"It's really easy to put on a pot of frozen vegetables and boil them in the water," says Ms. Fraser, who is helping to promote National Family Dinner Night. "But when you're feeling stressed, even a simple, straightforward task like that is overwhelming."

Miriam Weinstein, author of the new book The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happier, says people claiming to be "too busy" or "too stressed" to plan a family dinner need to re-evaluate their lifestyle.

"Schedules are a reflection of our priorities," explains Ms. Weinstein, a mother of two. "We brag now about how busy we are, how little time we have for anything, and it becomes self-fulfilling."

While she admits a "seamless, 90-minute dinner" is highly unrealistic, Ms. Weinstein believes it's within everyone's power -- and in every family's best interest -- to attempt regular sit-down suppers.

Pointing to a study released last month by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, she notes that family meals are even proven to curb risky behaviours among youth. Compared with teens who have five or more family dinners a week, the report found young people who have two or less family meals are three times likelier to try marijuana, 2 1/2 times likelier to smoke, more than 1 1/2 times likelier to drink alcohol and almost 40% less likely to receive A's and B's in school.