FAMILY MEALS TURN GIRLS AWAY FROM DRUGS

Not So With Boys, Study Reveals. Discrepancy Might Have To Do With
The Way Sons And Daughters Engage With Parents

Adolescent girls who sit down for frequent meals with their families
are half as likely to smoke, drink and use marijuana as those who
share family meals less often, according to a new study.

"Part of it is just parents being more in touch with their kids,
being able to see earlier on if their kids are veering down a path
that might not be filled with healthy choices," said Marla Eisenberg,
lead author of the paper and a professor of pediatrics in the
University of Minnesota's medical school.

Family meals may also offer protection simply because they increase
the amount of time teens spend at home instead of out with their
friends, she said - the environment where they are most likely to
experiment with cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.

Interestingly, teen boys do not enjoy the same benefit, with frequent
family meals having no bearing on their substance use down the road.

"It's really not as clear for boys; we've had a hard time pinning
down what's going on with boys," Eisenberg said.

She speculated that the difference may be due to the distinct ways in
which they engage with their families, with girls tending to be
emotionally closer to their parents and better equipped to pick up on
"emotional cues" of support.

The data came from about 800 students who were surveyed at age 10 to
13 and again five years later. The authors defined "frequent" family
meals as happening five times a week or more, with about 60 per cent
of the adolescents falling into that group at the start.

"That could certainly be Sunday brunch, it could be breakfast every
day before school," Eisenberg said. "We have no reason to believe
that this is isolated to dinner. Even increasing the weekly number of
meals by one or two has some additional benefit."

What's more, the authors found that eating together has benefits for
teen girls no matter how close their families or how good their
relationships with their parents.

"We always had family meals (when I was growing up) and I've just
kept up that tradition," said Ottawa's Joanne Perry, mother of a
27-year-old son, and daughters age 21, 18 and 14.

"I'm a family physician and I'm always shocked and surprised that a
lot of families don't do this anymore."

Her family shares cooking duties for dinners together seven days a
week, she said, even if one or another member is missing because of
sports or other commitments.

With her son living on his own and her two oldest daughters home from
university for the summer, the dinner table serves as a meeting place
to catch up, Perry said.

"We just kind of reconnect. 'How was your day, how was school?' and
that kind of thing," she said. "If there are a lot of my kids home,
then it's kind of their time to tease each other and do the sibling thing."

Family dinners are such a normal part of their household that her
children didn't balk at them even in their teenage years, she added.

"They rebelled against a lot of other things but not about having
supper together," Perry said, laughing.

The study is the most recent from Project EAT, a research initiative
examining the eating habits of teens, and will be published in the
Journal of Adolescent Health.

Previous research from the project found that frequent family meals
are associated with better nutrition, higher grades, lower risks of
suicide and depression, and with lower prevalence of eating disorders in girls.