Eating As A Family Reduces Stress
A new survey shows that eating as a family reduces stress. Researchers didn’t know my family. But that’s for another post.
OK, before we get to all that, let’s get to what the survey says.
Survey On Eating Together As A Family
It’s a survey from the American Heart Association. And it says that 91% of parents notice that their family is less stressed when everyone eats together. 84% say they wish they could share a meal more often with loved ones.
Overall, the surveyed adults confessed to eating alone about half the time. 65% say they’re somewhat stressed, with more than a quarter of people confessing to being very or extremely stressed.
About 60% said that they’re more likely to make healthier food choices when eating with other people. And 70% say they wouldn’t feel as stressed at work if they had more time to take a break and have a meal with a co-worker.
A Personal Experience
So here’s my experience with all of that. I’m an only child. I have little to no recollection of sitting at a table with my parents and having dinner. I have to imagine it happened when I was very young, but by the time I had my own bedroom, I had dinner in there, watching a small black & white TV.
Down the street was a very different family. He’s my oldest friend, and EVERY NIGHT at 6 pm, you knew where he and his entire family would be. And that would be at the dinner table. Mom, dad, two girls, and three boys, Italian. I’m not entirely sure being Italian had anything to do with it. But now, more than fifty years later, I think of them eating together, on a schedule fondly. And if you were asked to join them for dinner, you too knew, it was at 6 pm sharp.
Now so many years later, knowing what I know about the family, it’s as fractured as just about any other family. So gathering together didn’t seem to pay dividends all these years later, but again, I do remember those days fondly.
If you’d like to read more about this, click here.
