Thanks to Michelle Obama and many public health advocates, much-needed attention has been directed to the epidemic of childhood obesity in America. Many possible interventions have been raised, including programs for healthier school lunches, more opportunities for play and recess, and less consumption of processed, poor quality foods.
There is one simple idea, though, that gets barely any attention. It's something that parents can act on right away, without any special training or government support and its available to them every day! That solution is family dinner. How and where we eat may seem too simple in the face of the enormous problem of childhood obesity. Yet, the ritual of eating meals together as a family, be it one parent at the table or both, has been shown to greatly improve healthy eating habits.
Dr. David Katz, the new Editor-in-Chief of the journal Childhood Obesity argued recently on this site that families (parents and kids together) are being forgotten in the far-flung efforts to stop the upward trend of obesity in U.S. children. We agree. Programs are geared mainly towards schools, and occasionally to adults, but rarely do we treat the basic social unit of the family with any consideration. What an oversight! Family dinner is a positive activity that is immediately understandable to parents, and immediately actionable. It is something that the vast majority of parents can do without much more than some basic ingredients and a kitchen table.
Regular, routine meals add structure to a child's day (and to a parent's) and from this structure stems a myriad of health and social benefits, including better relationships with peers and adults, better grades at schools, and less likelihood of using drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. We all know this. But children (and adults) who have regular mealtimes, with the television turned off and conversation turned on, are also far less likely to be overweight, are less likely to have eating disorders, and are more likely to eat more fruits and vegetables than are those who eat alone or on the run.
To many people this seems illogical -- just because parents and children eat together doesn't mean they are eating healthy food, they argue. Couldn't families eat together and still just eat junk? Yes, of course, but empirical evidence, and common sense, shows that this is not the case. Many studies have shown that families who make dinner at home do indeed eat healthier. One theory is that once parents take the step to mindfully shop, prepare, and serve dinner, they also start making better health choices for themselves and their families. The act of sitting at the table and putting the focus on the mealtime may, all of a sudden, make the "fast-food" meal less palatable and a lot less interesting as an everyday option.
Family dinner is not always easy to accomplish night after night, but the benefits to families and to society are worth the effort. Parents could definitely benefit from improved nutritional information on packaging, from social and tax policies that support the purchase of healthy food, and from more flexible workplace policies to allow parents to get home by dinner hour. But we should be spending at least some of our research efforts figuring out how to best support parents to make healthy food choices and how to help them bolster the skills needed to accomplish family dinner.
The bottom line is dinner makes a difference. Family dinner is our best bet at an immediate impact in childhood obesity. We should not shy away from a proven solution, no matter how old-fashioned or simplistic it may appear. Family dinner and childhood obesity should be in the same sentence and families should be an intrinsic part of our anti-obesity efforts.
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David Katz, M.D.: Why Holistic Nutrition Is the Best Approach
Leah Mayor: Zero Waste Total Impact: Transforming School Lunch
He develops, over the first years of his life a pattern of a) breaking down food into usable nutrients - from mouth to stomach, b) absorbing those nutrients - in small intestine, and c) excreting out waste - from large intestine.
Therefore each child sets a 3 part pattern in infancy of how he will digest food. This seems to subconsciously program almost all behavior from then on.
This pattern is in the ENS, or Enteric Nervous System or digestion brain. It is unconscious motivation, and it is very difficult to change.
These three patterns are set up through breast feeding and weaning.
Generally problems with breast feeding will lead to overweight problems, and problems with weaning will lead to underweight problems.
Resetting this 3 part infant digestion pattern in the ENS, solves a vast layer of human physical and psychological problems that seems to be quite extensive. *This is an untested hypothesis.
these responses will be attributed here to a lack of knowledge. To remedy
that, I would recommend Dr. Ruby Payne's "A Framework for Understanding
Poverty." If there is not the time or desire to read the entire book, I'd
encourage looking up the concept of generational poverty. I would also
encourage the distinction between desire and "know-how." I'm thrilled that
each who responded took the time to respond so passionately. I am happy
that each of you has found what works for you. I would now encourage you to
consider other issues might be in effect, rather than "everyone has time to
do this." What if they don't? Then what? What if no grocery stores in their area (food deserts), and little or no mass transportation? What if no deep freeze or microwave? What if no education? We didn't want the schools to do it, so then who? Again, please see generational poverty. Easy answers, people, are what got us here.
Now that he is grown his career path has taken him through cooking school and even now as a Chef he comes home weekly for a family meal. The two of us have a relationship built on nourishing.
We bake together and compete with each other finding the best recipes from the freshest, local foods.
If you want to have a close relationship with your children as they grow older: feed them and spend the time today, and you may create the greatest gift of all, the love of family.
I agree that if you have to plan a meal you do make healthier choices. Since I am older, my dinners tended to go the old square meal route. There was a (usually meat) entree, a carb and a green or orange vegetable. This could be chicken, rice and a salad or spaghetti and a salad. It could also be pork roast, sweet potatoes and green beans or pot roast, mashed potatoes and carrots.
This is more than possible and actually quite easy once you start doing it. You find out what works best, you buy and use a slow cooker. Most days I can make dinner at home faster than we could get a seat in a restaurant.
Try it people. You eat better, you find out more about your children, you take the time to give thanks (yes, ritually, but still an impact on children - I have seen mine realize that not everyone has enough to sustain themselves through this saying of grace if you remember the needy in it) and to talk about the concerns of the community and the world.
Nothing takes its place.
You know what the first thing that went when I lost my job was? Cable TV. What's going on in this country is crap food is easy and people don't want to drag out a frying pan anymore.
Even in the winter, I have found that I can feed my family very well with fruits and vegetables on about fifty a week. Take the money you spend on sodas and chips and spend it on whatever produce is on sale that week. This week, I can get broccoli crowns at my local market for a dollar a pound. I, then, can serve my family steamed broccoli for way less than a bag of chips.
However, I do agree that the economy can take its toll on providing as well as you would like for your family even in terms of food.
But, try hard, work the sales and do what you can instead of going the route of junk food because it is filling. It might be better to feel a little hungry but have nourishing food that will help your body grow than to be filled with junk food. My experience has been that after eating high carb junk food a lot on vacation, I will at first feel hungry when I go back to a nourishing diet full of fruits and vegetables and a little meat.
Some of my favorite memories are of cooking with my kids. Acknowledged it's not always easy to find the time. So I strive for easy, quick recipes with few ingredients as well as one-dish meals.
You can find links to my recipes on my blog Confessions of a Worrywart http://tinyurl.com/usshg