But make sure to eat together

SITTING down with the family for meals really is better for children, research shows.

They experience better longterm physical and mental health as well as improved social skills, scientists say.

Children eating with their parents drank fewer drinks high in sugar and were less aggressive than those who ate on their own, researchers from the University of Montreal found.

Children who ate as a family from the age of six were generally fitter, less oppositional and showed less delinquency at the age of ten, they report in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.