Eating Dinner Together Prevents Childhood Obesity

As parents we want to give our kids the best and healthiest life, and recent studies have shown that Eating Dinner Together Prevents Childhood Obesity

As parents we want to give our kids the best and healthiest life, and recent studies have shown that Eating Dinner Together Prevents Childhood Obesity.  While parents shouldn’t feel pressured to create a home cooked meal every night, simply sitting down to dinner as a family will go a long way toward promoting a healthy lifestyle for the whole family, but especially your children.  Let’s take a look at the reasons this could benefit not only their health, but your own.

EATING DINNER TOGETHER PREVENTS CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Better Control Of Food Options:  Whether you are cooking healthy meals from scratch, or having occasional treats like fast food and take out sitting down together helps limit portions.  By cooking healthy meals and eating together, you can see the areas your child needs improvement in.  Perhaps they aren’t getting enough vegetables, this is the time you can notice which ones they enjoy and which ones they pass up.  It also gives you a chance to connect and talk about the food they do enjoy so you can create healthier options that will be their choice not only now, but as they grow up.  By seeing what they are eating on a regular basis you can figure out what types of food they like and you can provide them with a better overall diet.

Better Self Esteem With Better Family Relationships: When you spend more quality time with your children, you are able to effectively build their self esteem and self worth.  Sitting down to dinner together gives you a chance to connect on not only a superficial, but deeper emotional level.  Conversations about their day, their friends and their struggles are much easier to face over a bowl of soup at dinner than if you aren’t connecting with them on a regular basis.  Better self esteem often means better care for their own health.  It also gives you a chance to help build their confidence so they are less likely to feed themselves to combat emotional issues.

Taking the time to sit down with your family for dinner is important for many reasons.  The recent studies that show eating dinner together prevents childhood obesity are right on target.  While there are many factors that contribute to a child becoming obese, or struggling with their weight later in life this is one area that can help.  Not only can you focus on healthier food options together, you can see the areas your child struggles in.  By knowing the struggle you can easily work toward making changes that will encourage them to be healthier not just now but later in life.

Can you think of other ways eating dinner together prevents childhood obesity? We’d love to hear from you!

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9 thoughts on “Eating Dinner Together Prevents Childhood Obesity”

  1. Louanne Baelde

    I believe as well that eating together as a family is very important. Thank you for all of the great tips. Childhood obesity is a concern for many today.

  2. I’ve heard this a lot and to be honest, my family never managed to eat dinner together very often. It didn’t have much of a negative impact on my weight, but we managed to always have good home-cooked meals throughout the day (thanks to my wonderful supermom).

  3. We try to eat together every night,we have a rule NO FOOD in the tv room,so if your watching a movie and want a snack you eat it in the kitchen/dinette

  4. Interesting, I never knew this. My family eats dinner together almost every night, even if it means we eat a little bit later. Fortunately, I do not have any picky eaters, so we enjoy our dinner time together!

  5. My father used to play a game with me where he’d ask me to take ‘just one more bite,’ as I was a picky eater. It may have taken 20 ‘one more bites’ but he always encouraged me to eat healthy, and all of my food, by being there at dinnertime!

  6. Eating together as a family is VERY important to us.

    I think it helps prevent obesity by eliminating mindless eating. When you are in front of the TV eating, you tend to eat more without really thinking about it. At the dinner table, where your meal is the focus, we tend to only eat until we are full – and we eat slower since we are talking, so our stomach’s have time to recognize we are eating and letting us know when we are full!

  7. Eating together as a family at meal prevents kids from eating all those store packages goods such as pizza pockets,nuggets and other microwavable products that are fast and easy and loaded with empty calories

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