Family Meals Improve Diet Quality
Longer family meals are healthier meals for kids.
How to get kids to eat more vegetables and fruits? Maybe it’s a simple as getting them to sit at the table longer. Children of an average age of 8 randomized to spend 50% longer sitting down to family meals—a difference of just 10 minutes on average—consumed significantly more fruits and vegetables, found researchers at the University of Mannheim, Germany. On average, more drawn-out family meals induced kids to eat 3.32 more pieces of fruits and 3.66 more pieces of vegetables than those who ate during their regular mealtime duration, the researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.
Of course, to have such an effect, fruits and vegetables have to be available on the table. And the study authors suggest that slicing the fruits and vegetables into bite-sized pieces encouraged increased consumption during longer family meal times as they were more convenient to eat.
Matthew Kadey, MS, RD
Matthew Kadey, MS, RD, is a James Beard Award–winning food journalist, dietitian and author of the cookbook Rocket Fuel: Power-Packed Food for Sport + Adventure (VeloPress 2016). He has written for dozens of magazines, including Runner’s World, Men’s Health, Shape, Men’s Fitness and Muscle and Fitness.
