DRUGS, ALCOHOL OFF THE MENU

A study has found that sharing meals with parents and siblings keeps
teenaged girls away from substance use, Shannon Proudfoot writes.

Adolescent girls who frequently sit down for 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," says Marla Eisenberg,
lead author of the paper and a professor of pediatrics in the
University of Minnesota's medical school.

She says family meals may also offer protection simply because they
increase the amount of time teens spend at home instead of out with
their friends -- 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," says Ms. Eisenberg.

She speculates 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 when aged 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," Ms. Eisenberg says. "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," says Ottawa's Joanne Perry, mother of a
27-year-old son and daughters aged 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 says, even if everyone is not there, due to 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 is a
place to catch up, she says.

"We just kind of reconnect. 'How was your day, how was school?' and
that kind of thing. 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 an normal part of their household that her
children didn't balk at them even in their teenage years, she adds.

The study is the most recent from Project EAT, a research project
examining the eating habits of teens, and will be published in an
upcoming issue of 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.