How often do you find yourself racing through a meal while sitting in the car, scrolling on your phone, or hovering over your keyboard? Many times, this is necessary to meet the demands of a busy schedule. However, sitting down and enjoying meals together can have profound impacts on our health. Enjoying a shared or family meal offers numerous benefits that enhance physical health, emotional well-being, and social connections. Surprisingly, eating together can also have a healthy influence on how and how much we eat.
Connection Throughout the Process
“Higher frequency of family/shared meals was significantly correlated with fewer depressive symptoms, more connectedness, and higher levels of happiness”
Connecting over a meal doesn’t just have to occur while eating. There are opportunities to connect throughout the whole process – planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, setting the table, eating, and clean up. Any part of this process can cultivate a sense of belonging for anyone involved.
Enjoying meals together as a family can provide an opportunity for family members to connect, share experiences, and strengthen their relationships. This bonding time can enhance family cohesion and communication. Mealtime conversations help children to develop communication skills. They learn to listen, articulate their thoughts, and engage in discussions, which are important for social development. Involving kids in planning and cooking the meal improves their motor skills and confidence, while also reducing meal anxiety. Plus, these meals at home tend to be more affordable and nutritious than meals out.
Eating together at the table, away from the tv or cell phone, encourages mindful eating. Rather than being distracted by a screen, paying attention to the meal, and the people around you, slows the pace at which you eat. This can help to check in with how you feel throughout the meal. In fact, it can actually lead you to eat less! You are less likely to “clean your plate” or feel overly stuffed when eating a meal at the table, rather than while watching tv or looking at a phone.
How to Cultivate more Joyful, Shared Meals
Adults report stress around implementing shared meals, and yet after a shared meal, they report feeling more connected and having an improved mood.
Putting more shared meals on your calendar doesn’t have to be a burden! Again, consider recruiting support and help from the people you plan to eat with. Consider these other areas to make shared meals come about more easily:
- Carve out the time – it doesn’t have to be every meal. If all the kids have practice throughout the week, consider focusing on breakfast, or even at 4:30 pm pre-practice mini-meal, whatever makes more sense for your family. Outside of family meals, you can schedule lunch with a co-worker, an evening meal with a friend, or a weekend brunch.
- Keep it simple – a meal together doesn’t have to be scratch cooking. It can be a simple 3 ingredient dish, a home-delivered meal kit, or a pizza and bag of microwaveable broccoli.
- Share the workload – ask the family what they want to have on the menu. Even the planning stage can be an opportunity to talk and connect. Ask for their (age appropriate) help in rinsing veggies, stirring, measuring, setting the table, or clean up.
- No more “Clean Plate Club” – beyond connection, another goal of shared meals is to support yourself and your loved ones in mindfully enjoying the experience. Be mentally present at the meal when possible, paying attention to each other, and paying attention to feeling hungry, stressed, full, or happy throughout the meal. This promotes awareness, slows the pace of eating, and reduces the incidence of overeating.
Sharing a Meal
Make mealtime an opportunity to connect at home, at work, or meeting with a friend on the weekend. It could be any meal of the day. The more often you are able to share a meal experience (planning, cooking, enjoying the meal, cleaning up after), the more benefits you get. Think about an opportunity to add in one more shared meal experience in the week to come.
