{"id":60260,"date":"2015-11-28T10:18:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T16:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=60260"},"modified":"2015-11-26T19:39:53","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T01:39:53","slug":"family-dinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/11\/28\/family-dinners\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Dinners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Anne Fishel<\/strong><\/a> is a co-founder of the\u00a0Family Dinner Project<\/a>, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the author of\u00a0\u201cHome for Dinner.\u201d<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Each year,\u00a0more than 9 in 10<\/a>\u00a0Americans gather around the table with family and friends for Thanksgiving. But only 50 percent of us eat with our family on a regular basis. That\u2019s too bad. Twenty years of research has shown that family dinners are great for the brain (enhancing\u00a0preschool vocabulary<\/a>\u00a0and raising\u00a0test scores<\/a>), body (improving\u00a0cardiovascular health<\/a>\u00a0in teens and lowering the odds of obesity) and spirit (reducing rates of behavioral problems, stress and\u00a0substance abuse<\/a>). But in extolling the virtues of the family dinner, we may have obscured what the meal is actually about and why it serves parents and children. In that gap lies a thick stew of myths.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

1.\u00a0Teens don\u2019t want to eat with their parents\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet the scientific literature paints a different picture. Most teens value theirrelationships with their parents<\/a>. This is true at the dinner table, as well. About 80 percent of teenagers say they\u2019d rather have dinner\u00a0with their families<\/a>\u00a0than by themselves.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Family dinners are anti-feminist\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

But embracing family dinners doesn\u2019t have to mean conjuring a vision of June Cleaver in her spotless 1950s kitchen. Today, men are far more likely to help.Between 1965 and 2008<\/a>, men nearly doubled their time spent cooking, and 42 percentof men now cook as often as their wives.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Family dinners depend on being homemade.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, homemade meals are\u00a0usually healthier<\/a>\u00a0and lower in fats, salt, sugar and calories than store-bought alternatives. But the benefits of family dinners don\u2019t depend on what you eat. More important is the opportunity to\u00a0engage with your children<\/a>\u00a0and learn about their day-to-day lives.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Families don\u2019t have time to pull it off.<\/em><\/p>\n

In\u00a0my research<\/a>, lack of time is the top reason families give for not eating together more often. Kids and parents alike feel rushed, stretched by hectic schedules and exhausted by screens that keep us tethered to work around the clock\u2026.<\/p>\n

But not every American family is struggling to have dinner together. During the same period, other families started eating together more \u2014 the percentage of adolescents in the highest socioeconomic bracket who shared regular meals with their families rose from 56\u00a0percent to 61\u00a0percent\u2026<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0Food fights make family dinners impossible\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Studies have shown that the best way to avoid food fights isn\u2019t by forcing kids to eat \u2014 it\u2019s for parents to model good eating habits and introduce a wide variety of foods before age 4, when children are more open to them. Tactile play, such as having kids smear oil on vegetables for roasting, has also been shown to\u00a0reduce food aversions<\/a>\u00a0in children. And, finally,\u00a0kids crave familiarity<\/a>, so nutritionists offer the rule of 15: Keep presenting a new food up to 15 times until it is no longer novel.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Fishel is a co-founder of the\u00a0Family Dinner Project, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the author of\u00a0\u201cHome for Dinner.\u201d Each year,\u00a0more than 9 in 10\u00a0Americans gather around the table with family and friends for Thanksgiving. But only 50 percent of us eat with our family on a regular basis. That\u2019s too bad. Twenty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFamily Dinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anne Fishel is a co-founder of the\u00a0Family Dinner Project, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the author of\u00a0"Home for Dinner." 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