Family Meal

Children learn a lot from their parents. They tend to pick up their parent's exercise habits. They tend to copy their parent's food choices in the long run. But they also learn a lot from us about how eating should happen. Do we sit down together and eat? Do we eat on the run, in the car or in front of the television? Do we answer our phones or check emails during dinner? There is a lot of evidence suggesting that children who sit down to eat with their families on a regular basis actually stay healthier.

Our eating behaviors teach our children more than just which foods are healthier for their bodies. When we sit together, to share a meal, our children can learn valuable communication skills like, how to listen to other people and to share their ideas in an effective way.

Throughout the history, mealtimes have also been an important way for families to pass on traditions and stories from one generation to the next. For older children, the dinner table can be a safe place to talk about anything that's worrying them, and to get advice from the people they trust most. Besides all of this, dinner time can be so much fun.

But in the meantime, here are some tips to get you started. Firstly, have everything you need at the table ready at the start of the meal. Then, have a story ready about your own day. Tell them something that happened to you, and how you reacted, and ask them what they think. This helps them to share their own experiences, if they ever want to, at the table. Finally, if you have enough food to share, try inviting some friends to the meal. Having friends of any age at the table helps make dinner fun and can teach your children that meals are a good time to relax and enjoy good food in good company.

It may not be realistic for some families to sit down to a meal everyday. But in general, the more often we can sit down with our children to eat, the better it will be for their health. There is pretty good evidence that
children who regularly eat with their families do better at school and have better health outcomes than those who don't. And of course there are many ways for us to spend quality time with our children, but eating
together can protect the whole family's health and add so much value to our lives.