Healthy, Happy Eaters: Family Meals

There are numerous researched benefits to families eating meals together. I’d like to share some of them with you!

• They significantly increase the amount of fruit and veggies kids eat
• They are significantly associated with BMI z-scores (more family meals equals healthier BMI scores)
• They are associated with overall higher diet quality

But wait, the fun doesn’t stop there… research shows parent and child food intakes are closely related across various metrics of diet quality including energy intake (total calories.) This is most likely due to shared food environments, shared meals, and parental modeling.

Translation:

If you, the parents, are eating at Mc Donald’s (environment), your child is likely with you and either sharing your meal or getting their own Mc Donald’s meal (shared food.) This is due to you, the parent, modeling the consumption of that particular food. This example is, of course, a negative example.

A positive examples is you, the parents, eating a meal at home (environment) and sharing your meal (shared food.) Parents who eats a balanced meal with their children are modeling the behavior they want their children to exhibit – eating their veggies and other meal components!

If you’re ready to get into the Mini Meals Mindset at snack time, sign up below for my Snack Staples List and join my NIFTY community (NIFTY = Nutrition Info + Feeding Tips for You!)