Family Meals Promote Childhood Wellbeing

The quality of the family meal environment in early life affects children’s wellbeing as they age, according to a recent study.

For their study, the researchers evaluated 1492 children enrolled in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. Parent-reported typical meal environment quality was documented when children were age 6 years. When children reached age 10 years, lifestyle habits, academic achievement, and social adjustment were reported by parents, teachers, and children themselves, respectively.
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A series of multivariate linear regression was used to assess the association between early family meal environment quality and later outcomes.

Results of the study, which were adjusted for child and family characteristics, indicated that family meal environment quality at age 6 was associated with increased general fitness and decreased soft drink consumption, oppositional behavior, nonaggressive delinquency, and reactive aggression at age 10.

“From a population-health perspective, our findings suggest that family meals have long-term influences on children's biopsychosocial well-being,” the researchers concluded. “At a time when family meal frequency is on a natural decline in the population, this environmental characteristic can become a target of home-based interventions and could be featured in information campaigns that aim to optimize child development.”

—Christina Vogt

Reference:

Harbec MJ, Pagani LS. Associations between early family meal environment quality and later well-being in school-age children [Published online December 5, 2017]. J Dev Behav Pediatr. doi:10.1097/DBP.0000000000000520.