Scrap those reservations for one
A few years ago a book caught my eye.
Never Eat Alone commanded the cover. It was almost yelling at me. At the time I was a bachelor eating most dinners straight out of the takeout container hunched over a keyboard so I gave the book a cynical eyebrow raise and moved on. “Must be easy for author Keith Ferrazzi to say that,” I thought.
But then more recently I saw the book again.
And this time I flipped it open and stumbled upon this great quote:
“Life is less a quest than a quilt. We find meaning, love, and prosperity through the process of stitching together our bold attempts to help others find their own way in their lives. The relationships we weave become an exquisite and endless pattern.”
Well that’s true, I thought. And I did grow up eating M&M curly fries and chicken fingers with my sister in front of Blossom reruns. And, of course, breakfast with the family most mornings. Tuna sandwiches over card games with high school friends. And everyone stabbing into steamy poutines after the bars at university. I loved those memories. So I dug into it a bit deeper. What’s one of the biggest crises in the U.S. right now?
Well, former U.S. Surgeon General Vikek Murthy recently declared it to be loneliness. He wrote a cover story for Harvard Business Review and shared how loneliness causes a greater reduction to our lifespan than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Fifteen cigarettes a day!
He cites a report stating that loneliness has doubled since the 1980s with 40 per cent of Americans claiming they feel lonely.
A couple weeks ago, I attended a speech by my friend Mel Robbins, author of The Five Second Rule, at a real estate conference called Realtor Quest in Toronto. During her keynote, she asked the thousands of real estate agents if they came to the conference with an intention to meet new people and build their communities. When heads started nodding, she asked: “And how many of you sat down beside the few people in this room you already know?” Heads nodded again. And we all do that, don’t we? I’ve already given you one solution to loneliness in a Toronto Star article last year, but as it turns out, there’s an even simpler one we could implement every day. Never eat alone. An Oxford study involving 8,000 people found that approximately 25 per cent of people eat meals alone most of the time and that eating alone can causes unhappiness. The study found someone who always eats meals alone had a “living well score” of 7.9 points lower than someone who never sits down to eat alone. To give you perspective, having a mental health condition lowered scores by 8.5 points, which means that eating alone is almost as debilitating.
Another study published by Obesity Research & Clinical Practice found a strong correlation between eating alone and metabolic syndrome, which is defined as a clustering of three or more of the following medical conditions: abdominal (central) obesity, elevated fasting plasma glucose, elevated blood pressure, high serum triglycerides and low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. Yikes! The study found that, for men, eating alone increased risk of obesity by 45 per cent and risk of metabolic syndrome by 64 per cent. Unmarried men who ate alone were found to be the highest risk group for metabolic syndrome — not easy to remind myself of those crouched over the keyboard days — with more than three times the risk of men who reported eating meals with others.
The correlation was less for women, but still significant with those who ate alone at least twice a day being 29 per cent more likely to have metabolic syndrome than those who never ate alone.
The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC Norfolk) even found a correlation between living alone and poor dietary habits among older adults during a long-term study on diet, lifestyle and onset of chronic diseases.
This was one of the first studies to discover the negative impact eating alone can have on human health. So what do we do? Take risks. Invite a colleague out to lunch. Host a dinner party with the neighbours on your street you’d like to know. Throw out an impromptu dinner invite tonight to 15 friends and happily settle for the three who can make it. Start chatting with someone at the food court. Hang out in coffee shops with communal tables.
Even Loblaws is steeping into the issue with President’s Choice actually declaring an Eat Together Day on Friday, June 22 to highlight the importance of sharing meals with one another. How do I know about the event? Because I just had dinner with an old friend who mentioned it. Eating with others allows us to expand minds, palates and communities … all at the same time. So do what I do. Ask for two forks with the poutine next time.