How To Make Family Meals Healthier For Your Children

New research shows the importance of creating a positive mealtime environment for your family.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | March 22, 2022

A new study explores the relationship between a positive family mealtime atmosphere and the nutritional health of children. Given everyday challenges, it becomes difficult for families to eat meals together. In such cases, the research notes that even four shared meals a week can help boost the dietary intake of children.

To better understand the findings, I recently spoke to Vanessa Knobl, Research Assistant at School of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany, and one of the authors of the study. Here is a summary of our conversation:

What inspired you to investigate the topic of mealtime routines and children's nutrition, how did you study it, and what did you find?

I was especially inspired by the idea of what a great opportunity family meals provide for children to learn about healthy eating. Children eat most of their meals in a family context and parents can shape their children's eating behavior: First, because they usually act as nutritional gatekeepers — deciding what to buy and what to put on the table — but also by creating an environment that motivates children to eat healthily.

We already know that more frequent family meals are associated with better nutrition quality, but for a long time, it was not clear what exactly about family meals is healthy for children. A meta-analysis, which we refer to in our study, identified six mealtime routines that are related to children's nutritional health:

Creating a positive meal atmosphere during the meal
A longer duration of the shared meal
No TV use during the meal
Parental modeling of healthy eating
Involvement of the children in the meal preparation
And, whether the meals were prepared at home

For our study, we then focused on these six mealtime routines and added smartphone use because it increasingly complements TV use. On seven consecutive days, parents provided information on the mealtime routines they used and their fruit and vegetable intake as well as that of the child.

What we found was that, above all, a higher parental intake of fruits and vegetables and a more positive atmosphere during the meal were related to higher fruit and vegetable intake in children.

What factors did you consider that decided a positive atmosphere while having a meal? What should ideally be the atmosphere while having a meal?

That's a very good question because there really isn't a common scientific definition of a mealtime atmosphere yet. We asked parents about their satisfaction and enjoyment of the meal, how they would rate their child's mood, and directly about how they perceived the atmosphere of the meal. Questionnaires used in other studies also included the type and intensity of communication between family members as well as the sense of community and distractions during mealtime.

Put simply, the mealtime atmosphere is good when there are opportunities for exchange and all family members feel comfortable. Individual negative emotions that are brought to the table can influence the atmosphere, especially if they are not talked about. Disciplinary action and disruption can also negatively impact the mealtime atmosphere. But there is still research to be done here. Importantly, families differ strongly from each other: there might be routines that work for one family, but not for another.

Do you have plans for follow-up research? Where would you like to see research on perceptions of passion go in the future?

Yes, in fact, I asked myself the same question: What makes a good mealtime atmosphere? Which aspects count here? And, in the next step: which of these aspects is crucial for the connection with nutritional health? For this reason, I am currently working on a follow-up project in which we are trying to better understand mealtime atmosphere.

In the long term, building on this knowledge, we would like to have the possibility, on the one hand, to conduct experiments to also investigate causal relationships and, on the other hand, to develop interventions to improve the atmosphere at family meals.

Contrary to media reports, your research notes media consumption during mealtime to be much less. What's your take on it?

This was also surprising for us on several levels. Firstly, we were able to see that in over 90% of the families surveyed, television does not play any role at all during the family meal. We find similar rates for the use of smartphones. One possible explanation for this could be that parents do not label meals that are taken in front of the TV as 'family meals' and were therefore not the subject of our investigations.

In addition, we were also unable to find a correlation between media use and children's fruit and vegetable intake compared to previous research. Here, however, one should keep in mind the first point: namely, that only very few families used media at all and therefore we could only use very few families for this calculation.

In principle, I believe that media consumption during a meal should be viewed in a differentiated way: Is a phone ringing and interrupting an exciting discussion? Or is the TV merely on in the background? Does a family member use a smartphone and does therefore not come in contact with the others? Or do people show photos to each other and remember shared experiences? All of these scenarios are different and therefore also have a potentially very different effect on togetherness, atmosphere, and nutrition at mealtimes.

How important is it to involve a child in meal preparation or is it not important?

For me, the most relevant question here is: important for what? For nutritional health, in fact, only relatively small effects are shown in previous studies and we could not find a direct effect of child's involvement on fruit and vegetable intake. What we were able to show, however, is that involvement is significantly related to the mealtime atmosphere. Thus, it would be conceivable that positive interactions during meal preparation are carried over into the meal; thus involvement would have an indirect effect on nutritional health.

Involving children in meal preparation definitely makes sense with regard to the opportunity for them to learn about different products and how to prepare healthy food. It is important here that this is not done under force and thus the meal is already started with negative interactions.

In the busy lives we are having right now, especially because of the pandemic, parents are working really hard to maintain a healthy work-life balance. How do you suggest they should figure out time to have a meal together with their children?

I think we all know that everyday challenges can make it difficult to eat every meal together. So it's perhaps reassuring to know that this doesn't have to be the case. Even four shared meals a week already show a correlation with better dietary intake of children. Moreover, there is evidence that it is not always necessary for the whole family to eat together. Even if one parent is with a child, this can be an enriching family meal and may be more realistic to implement than always gathering the entire family around the table.

What are the practical takeaways from your research for parents?

Family meals are an important resource for children's nutritional health, and it is worth making them a priority in everyday life. But don't stress. Fewer happier family meals are better than many but stressful ones.
Create an environment where all family members feel comfortable sharing positive as well as negative experiences and feelings.
If you want your child to eat more fruits and vegetables, be a good role model. Buy some, offer them at mealtime, and, above all, enjoy eating them yourself.