Family meal times ‘improve children’s mental health’

IT may provoke howls from youngsters who would prefer to watch television or play a computer game.

But research shows that children who eat meals together with their parents experience better physical and mental health in the long term.

Researchers suggest that families should try to eat together around a table – as it will improve their children’s social skills. Eating together is an ‘easy target’ that will ‘improve children’s well-being’, the researchers said.

Children eating with their parents also drank fewer drinks high in sugar, had better social skills and were less aggressive than those who ate on their own.

Researchers from the University of Montreal tracked 1,492 children born between 1997 and 1998 to the present day. They recorded data about the group including whether they ate as a family or not.

Children who ate as a family at age six had higher general fitness, were less aggressive, less oppositional and showed less delinquency at age ten.

Linda Pagani of the University of Montreal said of the research published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioural Paediatrics said that the possible benefits of eating round a table include providing children with experience of holding a conversation, discussions of social issues and day-to-day concerns ‘in an emotionally secure setting’. Professor Pagani stated this benefits children when they have to talk to people outside the family unit, such as in the workplace.