What Is The Importance Of Family Dinners?

Family dinners can serve as a foundational practice for a healthy family. It is a great time to bond and catch up. Humans have evolved sharing meals and eating together. If you think about a variety of different gatherings, the one constant there will be food. This is because it acts as a great connection point.

Benefits Of Family Dinners

1. Development

Eating together helps kids with language skills and other social skills when relating to other people. Also, it shows that eating together has been shown for kids to be less likely to engage in behaviors such as smoking and drinking later on. Lastly, vocabulary development has been shown to improve with this practice.

2. Mental health

It also has been shown that connected members have less mental health challenges such as depression.

3. Better Sense Of Connection

We often have a lot to do these days, and eating together may be the main time that we get to spend with our families. Asking questions such as what was their favorite part of the day, or seeing if they have any challenges that they need to overcome.

4. Tend to have healthier dinners

Families have shown to make more of an effort when eating together to have more vegetables and fruit, as well as less ultra processed food.

5. Strategize

This is a great time to strategize and plan, or work through any challenges. Working on personal development or growth is a good idea.

Meaningful Tips

1. Gratitude

Starting the meal with gratitude and perhaps deep breathing is a great way to connect with the food and put yourself in a parasympathetic state. The parasympathetic state is associated with rest and digest, which will help you digest food better, and get more nutrients out of it.

2. Schedule it

It’s been shown that the minimum effect dose is three times per week to get these benefits. Schedule it, and make it an event people are excited to attend.

3. Lose the devices

When eating together, it’s a good idea to put down the devices so you can actually connect. The phone can act as a barrier, as your mind will be else where instead of your loved ones.