ENLIGHTENED DIET: Nutritious Family Meals in Front of the TV

by Carol Schuck Scheiber

Even with the TV on, meals with your family are more nutritious than meals eaten by yourself. That’s the surprising finding from a University of Minnesota study of some 5,000 high school and middle school students.

The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition and Behavior (Sept. 2007), found that about a third of the 5,000 students surveyed ate family meals with the TV on. While family meals with the TV off were the most nutritious, researchers found that even with the TV on, meals eaten together as a family included higher levels of vegetables and calcium-rich foods than meals eaten alone. And this was the case for “troubled” as well as “connected” families.

“Obviously we want people eating family meals, and we want them to turn the TV off,” Shira Feldman, public health specialist at the university’s School of Public Health told the New York Times. “But just the act of eating together is on some level very beneficial, even if the TV is on.”

It’s unclear why the nutritional levels are higher when families dine together. Researchers speculate that parents provide better food when everyone is together.