Bayside Dietetics
By Sarah Smith of Bayside Dietetics
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Pop quiz from what you know already: What can you do to help your child be happier and healthier, that also has a benefit on helping them get along better with others?
What about something you can do that could help your child eat all the different foods you’d like to cook at dinner, alongside helping them be at a weight that is best for them?
Is there anything you know that could help your child do well at school, as well as reducing the likelihood that they engage with sex, drugs and alcohol as a teenager?
There is a single answer that helps every single one of these outcomes…and it can be enjoyable to do. It is setting up family meals.
Yep, that’s right, someone out there has done a study to conclude that eating a family dinner is associated with a teenager being less likely to have sex.
There is an extra bit of information that comes alongside what I’ve told you already and that is having family meals is MORE important to helping your child’s health and happiness than what your family looks like. That is, a family meal is more beneficial than how much you earn, whether or not your family is separated, goes to church, or whether your child participates in after school activities.
I blog regularly about family meals and that is why. In terms of doing something that has substantial benefit for the effort you put in, let’s call it bang for your buck, it’s achieving a time in the evening when the family comes together at the table. Whatever that looks like for your family.
Here is a short story that illustrates the power of a family meal. I recently met a family that is incredibly committed to helping their child eat more variety. The more work they do, the more their child seemed to narrow their intake and now there are real concerns about their child’s weight. There was one new food their child had tried in the past 2 years, however. That food was the spinach leaf salad that was regularly on the table at dinner, but never offered to this child. The family knew their child’s preferences well enough to recognise that trying a texturally leafy and bitter food such as spinach was unlikely, so they never encouraged their child to try it. Yet, that is exactly what their child did. The power of regular role modelling eating spinach by the rest of the family, alongside the low-pressure environment around this salad seemed to work magic. This behaviour was alongside the child steadfastly refusing to try other new things the family were encouraging. Interestingly, the child made the move to try the spinach at a dinner that the family recalled as being relaxed and enjoyable, which wasn’t always the case.
We know that in Australia, getting the family together for an evening meal is very difficult to achieve, and is harder as children get older. Yet the value holds for teenagers alongside younger children.
If you are going to direct your energy to making one change for your family this year, whatever your family looks like, there may just be the most bang for your buck in trying to achieve family meals.
Food for thought. Together.
Sarah
