Social Value of Family Meals
Community
A Perspective on Family Meals
Do They Matter?
Mary Story, PhD, RD Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD
This article describes the social value of family meals and the impact of family meals on children’s dietary quality, psychosocial health, and learning. Strategies for promoting family meals are presented.
Social Value of Family Meals
Anthropological studies clearly show that meals are vitally important symbols of social connections and are central to human communication.4 Sharing of food and mealtime eating is common to every human society. Historically, transactions surrounding food have been considered the glue of the social system, and mealtime is symbolic of social connections.4 Family meals are defined as eating food together and have long been considered essential for the unity of the family and a symbol for family interactions. MacKenzie4 notes that the family meal can be a code for communicating love, as well as information, and can provide opportunities for parents to give children attention, to talk and listen to them, to give them sociable experience in conversation, and teach manners. Family meals can also transmit cultural and ethnic heritage and serve as the basis of ‘‘food memories’’ formed in childhood and carried throughout life.4 The family meal can also be viewed in the context of family rituals. Rituals, defined as symbolic forms of communication continued over time in a systematic manner,5 provide an index to the level of a family’s integration. Family rituals consist of celebrations, traditions, and family interactions and are important to families because they reinforce family identity, give all members a shared sense of belonging, and transmit family values, attitudes, culture, and goals. Rituals also provide a sense of structure. Rituals can be particularly important to young children because they provide a sense of security and a sense of how families work together.4 In our society, families have to work hard to
A Perspective on Family Meals
Do They Matter?
Mary Story, PhD, RD Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD
This article describes the social value of family meals and the impact of family meals on children’s dietary quality, psychosocial health, and learning. Strategies for promoting family meals are presented.
Social Value of Family Meals
Anthropological studies clearly show that meals are vitally important symbols of social connections and are central to human communication.4 Sharing of food and mealtime eating is common to every human society. Historically, transactions surrounding food have been considered the glue of the social system, and mealtime is symbolic of social connections.4 Family meals are defined as eating food together and have long been considered essential for the unity of the family and a symbol for family interactions. MacKenzie4 notes that the family meal can be a code for communicating love, as well as information, and can provide opportunities for parents to give children attention, to talk and listen to them, to give them sociable experience in conversation, and teach manners. Family meals can also transmit cultural and ethnic heritage and serve as the basis of ‘‘food memories’’ formed in childhood and carried throughout life.4 The family meal can also be viewed in the context of family rituals. Rituals, defined as symbolic forms of communication continued over time in a systematic manner,5 provide an index to the level of a family’s integration. Family rituals consist of celebrations, traditions, and family interactions and are important to families because they reinforce family identity, give all members a shared sense of belonging, and transmit family values, attitudes, culture, and goals. Rituals also provide a sense of structure. Rituals can be particularly important to young children because they provide a sense of security and a sense of how families work together.4 In our society, families have to work hard to