The Editorial

You’d better sit down for this news. Sit down, and pass that plate to your neighbour.

While Health Canada’s latest national food guide has garnered plenty of attention for suggesting we eat more plant-based proteins and drink less milk, the document’s most important bit of advice has nothing to do with food. Rather, it’s the recommendation that Canadians should try to “eat with others more o en.” If we can do this, we might not need governments telling us what to eat in the first place. Make meal time more sociable, and most of the other food-related problems in life will take care of themselves.

The family that eats together, stays together. The benefits of spending mealtimes together are so well-established as to have become folk wisdom. But it’s still true. Beyond allowing family members to share more deeply in each other’s lives, ample research also reveals that eating together produces children who have better food habits and are less likely to skip school or use illicit drugs than those who tend to eat alone.

Eating together is good advice for all Canadians, not just those with school-aged children. According to the 2016 Census, 28 per cent of all households have just one person in them—outnumbering couples with children for the first time since Confederation. Our new demographic reality obviously makes it harder to eat with others. Seniors are especially vulnerable in this regard. New technology, time pressures and shi ing work habits further contribute to growing mealtime isolation. According to a 2017 Dalhousie University survey, workingage Canadians are more likely to eat lunch at their desk (39 per cent) or at home (37 per cent) than to share lunchtime with others in a cafeteria or lounge (24 per cent).

This solitary life can have significant health implications with respect to food. Numerous studies of binge eating and other eating disorders have found loneliness to be a key emotional trigger. And without social cues or the distraction of conversation, it’s easier for even non-bingers to overeat. That Dalhousie survey also found singles were three times more likely than married folk to snack several times a day, rather than eat regular meals. Bad habits occur most frequently alone.

In fact, social isolation, of which eating alone is a key indicator, is arguably a bigger problem than obesity or any of the other health-related issues Canada’s new food guide is seeking to solve with its recommendations to drink more water and cut down on processed foods. An eye-opening 2015 study by Brigham Young University psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad uncovered many surprising medical implications of being lonely. “Current evidence indicates that heightened risk for mortality from a lack of social relationships is greater than that from obesity,” HoltLunstad’s study reports. Being lonely is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It’s also worse for your health than the risks arising from alcohol consumption, physical inactivity or air pollution—all of which get much more official attention than loneliness.

Humans are social creatures, and avoiding the necessity of social contact can be devastating to our physical and mental health. Mealtime is a good place to start fixing this problem. In her 2013 book Eating Together: Food, Friendship and Inequality, sociologist Alice Julier further argues that domestic hospitality, covering such things as potlucks and dinner parties, serve a crucial role in maintaining social cohesion in democratic societies.

With all this in mind, the food guide’s call for greater sociability at the table seems worthy of attention. Suggestions include making a breakfast date with friends, starting up a community dinner in your neighbourhood, trekking down to the lunchroom or simply asking a roommate to share a meal. Following this advice may take more effort than eating alone, but it’s likely to have a bigger impact on your health than whatever you choose as your beverage or protein. So eat well. But eat well with others if you can.

Being lonely is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and worse for your health than physical inactivity or air pollution