Family Meal Benefits
According to a recent study, teenage girls who eat meals with their families may develop healthier eating habits and avoid eating disorders like bulimia.
This is another excellent reason to share quality family time around the table.
The researchers found teenage girls who ate five or more family meals per week were less likely to resort to extreme dieting measures like using diet pills or laxatives, binge eating, and vomiting to control their weight.
The study was published in the January issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine and surveyed 2,516 adolescents in 1999 and again in 2004.
Some examples from the survey found 26% of girls who ate family meals fewer than five times a week reported using self-induced vomiting and use of laxatives, diet pills, or diuretics to control their weight compared with 17% of those who ate five or more family meals per week.
The same results did not correlate with boys and may have been related to the possibility that adolescent boys and girls have different experiences at family meals where girls may have more involvement in food preparation and other food-related tasks, playing a protective role.
Another possibility is that girls may be more sensitive to and likely to be influenced by interpersonal and familial relationships than are adolescent boys.
Whatever the reason, family meals are good for everyone to strengthen relationships.
This is another excellent reason to share quality family time around the table.
The researchers found teenage girls who ate five or more family meals per week were less likely to resort to extreme dieting measures like using diet pills or laxatives, binge eating, and vomiting to control their weight.
The study was published in the January issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine and surveyed 2,516 adolescents in 1999 and again in 2004.
Some examples from the survey found 26% of girls who ate family meals fewer than five times a week reported using self-induced vomiting and use of laxatives, diet pills, or diuretics to control their weight compared with 17% of those who ate five or more family meals per week.
The same results did not correlate with boys and may have been related to the possibility that adolescent boys and girls have different experiences at family meals where girls may have more involvement in food preparation and other food-related tasks, playing a protective role.
Another possibility is that girls may be more sensitive to and likely to be influenced by interpersonal and familial relationships than are adolescent boys.
Whatever the reason, family meals are good for everyone to strengthen relationships.
Labels: eating disorders, obesity, study
posted by Anonymous at 6:08 AM
1 Comments:
There was also a study a few years ago that showed that children who ate supper with their folks also made better grades and received more college scholarships.
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