1. Note to presenter:
Use this slide if desired to write the name of your event, group’s name, presenter’s name, date, etc. Or, advance to the next slide if not used.
This presentation incorporates several opportunities for interaction and discussion. Including these discussions will make this presentation at least 30 minutes, and could easily extend to minutes with lots of discussion.
To shorten to around 20 minutes, use the Hide Slide feature in the drop down box under “Slide Show” and hide the following slides:
2, 3, 9, 14, 17, 21, 22, 23, 28, 31.
When italicized print is used in the script it indicates additional information or comments that can easily be omitted if time is a factor.
Suggested handouts include the Family Meals spell SUCCESS handout, the resource list for presentations, and the survey tool. Additional handouts from CASA and other sources listed on the link page can also be provided.

2. Family Meals spell S – U – C – C – E – S - S
Welcome to: “Family Meals – Spell S-U-C-C-E-S-S”
Introduce self as needed, or thank the person who introduced you.
Does everyone have the handouts? (describe what you are providing)
This program is provided as part of the Indiana State Nutrition Action Plan. This plan, called SNAP for short, is a joint effort between Indiana Cooperative Extension, the Indiana WIC Program, the Indiana Dept of Education, and the PTA. The goal of SNAP is to provide participants in these programs information on the importance of family meals.
Let’s begin our discussion by looking at what we mean by family mealtime, then we’ll look at how mealtime has changed and the consequences of those changes.
Most importantly we’ll look at ways we can promote family meals in our community.
Because… Family Meals spell SUCCESS!

3. What does “family meal” mean to you?
Family Meals
What does “family meal” mean to you?
If you were to draw a picture of a family meal on this chalkboard, or write out a definition, what would it be?
Allow participants to share with one another, or brainstorm together as a group.

4. Does this picture fit your description, or does something else come to mind for you?
It is so easy to think others eat the way we eat.
How often do you think families in our community eat together like this?

5. Is there time for meals?
Think about the schedules of children and families in our community between the end of the school day and bedtime?
How often in a week are family meals a part of that schedule?
Is a “meal” eaten in a car between activities a good substitute?
How about a “meal” eaten from a concession stand?
Is take-out eaten in front of the TV just as beneficial?

6. Are family meals important?
How frequent are family meals?
Is it important that people experience family meals? If everyone gets fed, does it really matter how?
If less people are having family meals, does that matter?
These are reasonable questions to ask because we are no longer eating together as much as we did in times past.
In fact, most surveys of American families find that only about one-third eat together at least once a day. Nearly a third rarely eat together and the other third eat together sporadically. But this does vary with the life cycle.

7. % Teens Having Family Dinners 7X/Week
Look at this graph.
As a child grows older the frequency of family meals declines. Each year since 1998, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (called CASA for short), has surveyed thousands of teens between the ages of 12 and 17. You can access this report at the CASA web site which is listed on your handout.
Notice the steep decline in how many teens have family dinners on a daily basis between ages of 12 and 17. The number of teens eating with their families every day drops by more than half during this six year period.
You might ask, why would the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University be tracking the prevalence of family meals? Well, back in 1996 they made a discovery… When they were looking for those things, if any, that differentiated the kids who engaged in destructive behaviors like smoking, drinking and drugs, from those who did not, they examined all kinds of variables accounting for race, class, and ethnicity. The results surprised them. They found that eating dinner with their families was more predictive of these behaviors than many things they had expected like church attendance or grades in school. More on that later…
2005 CASA National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse X: Teens and Parents

8. What happened to the family meal?
Conflicting schedules
Both parents working
Long work hours
Split shifts
Meetings
Sports practices
Music lessons
↓ Cooking skills
Why are fewer families, especially during the teen years, eating regular family meals than in years past?
What do they site as the culprit?
This list is no surprise:
Conflicting schedules, both parents working, often long work hours and split shifts, too many meetings, and kids’ practices for sports and music…
All of these things lead to fatigue and the feeling there is not enough time and energy for planned meals . . .
Is there anyone in this room that feels like they don’t attend enough meetings and they’d like their children to be more scheduled into activities?
Also, we are seeing more people with limited skills in food preparation, which leads to a lack of confidence in their ability to get a “meal” on the table.
So, even though surveys indicate that the overwhelming majority of parents say they think family meals are important, they aren’t having them as often as they’d like.

9. How we eat today . . .
This in turn motivates drive-thru eating and microwave dinners in front of the TV, or each family member grabbing what they want, and eating when and where they want.
Is this a problem? Let’s find out…

10. How about YOU?
Reflect on your own experiences with family mealtime . . .
Share your best memories of family meals growing up
Describe “family meals” for you today
Before we do, let’s reflect on our own experiences with family meals.
Either turn to the person sitting next to you, or break into small groups of 3 or 4 and spend a couple of minutes sharing your own experiences.
Allow a few of minutes to discuss.
As time allows, ask people to share.

11. Do family meals matter? Academic performance Risk-taking behaviors
Relationships
Eating habits and weight
Do family meals matter? We’ll look at this question from several points of view – the impact of the family meal on academic performance, risk-taking behaviors, social skills and family relationships, and eating habits and weight.

12. S – U – C – C – E – S - S Smarter children…
Unlikely to smoke, drink, or take drugs…
Courteous and conversational…
Connected to family…and
Eating better! Because…at family meals
Sharing food and conversation
Strengthens families!!
What we will find out is that family meals spell SUCCESS.
SUCCESS stands for …
Slide is animated, read each line as you add it to the list.

13. S = Smarter Children
↑ language acquisition (C. Snow, Harvard Grad School of Education)
↑ vocabulary = better readers and students
First, I’ll mention a few findings relating the role of family meals to academic performance.
A study directed by Dr. Catherine Snow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, followed 65 families over 15 years, looking at how mealtime conversations play a critical role in language acquisition in young children. Mealtime conversations were tape recorded and analyzed. They found that the conversations that occur around the family table teach children more vocabulary and forms of discourse than children learn when you read to them. Educators know that improved vocabularies lead to better readers. And, better readers do better in all school subjects.
Other researchers and surveys have also found an association between eating more frequent family meals and academic success.
These are listed on your handout and resource list.

14. % Teens Who Get A’s/B’s in School by Frequency of Family Dinners
Here are the CASA findings relating grades in school to frequency of family meals. According to their most recent report, teens who have dinner with their families seven times a week are almost 40 percent more likely to say they receive mostly A’s and B’s in school compared to teens who have dinner with their families two or fewer times a week.
Why is this? Is it because smarter parents eat family meals? Is it because of the language acquisition and conversation? Is it because parents have an opportunity to talk about school, or remind children about homework?
If a family starts eating meals together, will grades improve? We need to research that question…
Maybe one of things schools could do to improve grades would be to prohibit, or at least limit, meetings and sporting events during supper hour. Wouldn’t that be revolutionary?!
2005 CASA National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse X: Teens and Parents

15. Jeopardy’s Million Dollar Man –
Ken Jennings
One more piece of anecdotal evidence in support of mealtime and academic performance:
Is this a familiar face to you?
Ken Jennings became quite the phenomenon as Jeopardy’s highest paid champion. When he was asked what he attributed his success to in an interview on the show, one of the things he mentioned was how his family ate dinner together every night and how much he learned from the discussions that took place around the table.

16. U = Unlikely to smoke… http://www.casafamilyday.org
U stands for children who are unlikely to smoke, drink, take drugs, or participate in other risk-taking behaviors.
In 2001, CASA launched “Family Day” as an annual event – it is celebrated every year on the fourth Monday of September.
Why would CASA promote family meals? The 2003 slogan says it well – it is one habit that prevents another.
CASA research has shown that the more often young people sit down at the dinner table with their families the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use illegal drugs.

17. Family Dinners and Teen Substance-Abuse Risk
Their (CASA) surveys consistently find each year that teens who have dinner with their families two nights a week or less are at double the risk of substance abuse as teens who have frequent family dinners.
Consider this:
Teens who eat dinner with their parents twice a week or less are four times more likely to smoke cigarettes, three times more likely to smoke marijuana, and nearly twice as likely to drink as those who eat dinner with their parents six or seven times a week.
Teens who eat frequent family dinners are also less likely than other teens to have sex at young ages and get into fights; they are at lower risk for thoughts of suicide; and are likelier to do better in school. This is true regardless of a teen’s gender, family structure, or family socioeconomic level.
Teens who have frequent family dinners are more likely to be emotionally content, work hard at school, and have positive peer relationships, not to mention healthier eating habits.
2005 CASA National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse X: Teens and Parents

18. What teens like to do with their parents
Spend holidays together 90%
Go out to a nice restaurant 86%
Go on vacation 79%
Eat dinner at home 79%
Family parties 68%
Go to church, synagogue 66%
Watch TV 66%
Go out for fast food 64%
Many people assume that eating with their families isn’t important to teens.
However, this has not been shown to be the case when teens are asked.
As you can see from this survey, eating dinner with their parents was listed as one of the top choices of things teens say they like to do – nearly 80% said this.
Teenage Research Unlimited, P. Zollo, 2004

19. C = Courteous and Conversational
C stands for courteous and conversational.
Family meals are a natural training ground for learning social skills, manners, and how to have pleasant conversations.
You may laugh at this thought if your family meals seem like anything but this is being learned!
Don’t dismay, perfect etiquette isn’t the goal, just an ability to act civil, take turns, be a good listener and practice the give and take that is needed… not just around a family table but in a classroom, on a team, and later… around the water cooler or in the board room.
Think about it… it’s at the family table that we learn to talk, learn to behave, to take turns, be polite, not to interrupt, how to share, and when we have guests, how to entertain – good lessons for success in life!

20. C = Connected to Family The second C stands for Connected to Family.
Children and adolescents who eat family meals together experience improved family communication, have stronger family ties and a greater sense of identity and belonging.
Research on the significance of family routines and “rituals” considers the family meal a marker for strong, resilient families. Even in alcoholic families, research has shown that if families can manage to maintain the ritual of family meals, children have much better chances of not becoming alcoholics themselves.
We know that strong families eat family meals… can family meals make stronger families? How can they not?

21. E = Eating Better ↑ fruits and vegetables ↑ grains
↑ calcium-rich foods
↑ protein
↑ iron
↑ fiber
↑ vitamins
↓ soft drinks
E tells us that children eat better at family meals.
Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota, as well as other researchers, have found a dramatic relationship between family meal patterns and dietary intake in adolescents.
Their study involved nearly 5,000 middle and high school students of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.
They found that family meals were associated with improved intakes of fruits, vegetables, grains, calcium-rich foods, protein, iron, fiber, and vitamins A, C,E,B-6, and folate. They were associated with a lower intake of soft drinks.
When families eat together, families eat better.
The difference between those who ate family meals and those who did not was approximately ½ to 1 additional serving each of fruits and vegetables, grains, and calcium-rich foods, 226 more mg of calcium, and anywhere from 15-30% higher intakes of protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber. The differences were significant at a p value of <.001.
Neumark-Sztainer, JADA (103), 2003

22. JADA. 104:1 Supplement 1. January 2004
The Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study, called FITS for short, found that by 24 months of age, French fries are the most common vegetable consumed by toddlers, with one-quarter of all toddlers having fries every day. Now do you think this is because Ore-Ida is selling lots of fries that these youngsters are eating with their families around the table, or do you suppose it means lots of young children are eating meals from little boxes or bags they got at the drive through and are dining in car seats on the way to and from other activities?
Now, we don’t need to bash French Fries or fast food, but the finding that 25% of toddlers are having them daily says more than something about food choices, it tells us something about mealtimes.
This study also found that over 40% of calories consumed by young children come from added fats and sugars. These aren’t the fats naturally found in meat or dairy products, or the sugar in apples and oranges – these are the fats for frying those French fries and the sugars in sweetened beverages and sweet treats children eat when they graze between meals. These calories are replacing the calories found in foods traditionally found in meals eaten around a table with other family members – meat and potatoes, bread, vegetables, fruit and milk.
JADA. 104:1 Supplement 1. January 2004

23. Why is it family meals impact a child’s eating habits and therefore their health?
As a child grows, children learn good nutrition and positive eating habits and social skills by the examples set (or not set) by their parents at the family table. We learn to eat by watching others eat. At meals others can model healthy eating and socialize children into eating like the rest of the family according to their culture.
To think that children would experience healthy eating as well away from the table would be like thinking we could learn to swim without ever getting in a pool.
There’s something about putting a meal on the table to be shared with others that motivates healthier food choices. Not that it can’t happen without a shared meal at the table, it just seems to be less likely. When people are asked to describe a “meal” they usually say something like, “It has a meat or other protein food, a starchy food, and a vegetable or salad.” When they are asked to describe another type of eating event, vegetables are NOT usually mentioned. Interesting…

24. Family Meals: Could they help prevent overweight?
Consistent mealtimes → food security
↑ nutrient-dense foods, ↓ nutrient-poor foods
Parents role model healthy eating at meals
Prevent “disengaged” eating and promote “focused” eating, respond to hunger/satiety
Promote sense of belonging
Child and adult overweight are huge issues today.
There are many reasons family meals are seen as a potential preventive measure against overweight in children:
a. Consistent mealtimes allow children to feel secure that they will be fed; regular meals prevent grazing and promote coming to the table hungry but not “starving.”
b. Family meals promote an improved intake of nutrient-dense foods and a reduced intake of nutrient-poor foods. c. At family meals parents can role model healthy eating behaviors and a healthy relationship with food and eating.
d. At family meals eating can be a focused activity; therefore hunger and satiety cues can be attended to and respected.
e. Family meals promote a feeling of belonging when family members come together and lower risk for loneliness-induced eating for comfort.

25. S – U – C – C – E – S - S Smarter children…
Unlikely to smoke, drink, or take drugs…
Courteous and conversational…
Connected to family…and
Eating better! Because…at family meals
Sharing food and conversation
Strengthens families!!
Let’s review:
SUCCESS stands for …
Slide is animated, read each line as you add it to the list.

26. This family appears to be sharing food, but are they sharing conversation?
What distracts family members from each other?
Actually, it isn’t cell phones.

27. For how many people today is THIS what a family meal means?
How does television impact meals? If this is what the family defines as a family meal, does it matter?

28. TV and Family Meals: Kaiser Family Foundation 1999 (1090 2-7 yrs old; 2065 8-18 yrs old)
Is TV usually on during meals in your home?
(% yes)
Total sample 58%
2-7 yrs 47%
8-18 yrs 65%
How common is that type of “family meal”?
For more than half of the families in this Kaiser Family Foundation survey, the television was on during meals.

29. What difference does TV make?
TV during meals ↑ in households with ↓ incomes, less educated or single parents
Consumption of pizza, salty snacks and soda higher among families with TV on during 2 or more meals
Children from families with high TV use had 5% less of their energy intake from fruits and vegetables
In this study by Katherine Coon and her colleagues at Tufts University in Boston, found that TV viewing during meals does make a difference.
It is more common in households with lower incomes, less educated mothers, or single parents.
TV viewing was associated with a higher intake of foods we associated with television: pizza, salty snacks and soft drinks and a lower intake of fruits and vegetables.
Coon et al. Pediatrics 2001:107

30. Strategies for family meals:
Make a priority
Plan ahead
Create positive atmosphere
How can you recapture family mealtimes if they’ve fallen by the wayside?
I suggest implementing three strategies to make mealtimes happen:
Make mealtimes a priority.
Plan ahead.
And, create a positive atmosphere at the table.

31. Strategies for family meals:
Make a priority
First, make family meals a priority.
For most families, it is highly valued but under-achieved. Begin by realizing it IS possible to eat together. Strategize solutions to overcome your barriers. If you can’t make it dinner, eat breakfast together. Begin with just one weekend dinner if currently you never eat together. Start small and work up – at least clear off the table so you can eat there. If necessary, get a table. Even eating out can be a family meal, if you go inside and eat around a table together!
To make mealtime work, it has to be a priority for everyone.
What might happen if as a society we honored family mealtime? How could our community (organization) honor mealtime?
What if every business, every institution and agency, every school and church took it upon themselves to deem dinner time important and not schedule meetings and practices and other conflicts? Imagine what it could do to support the family!

32. Community Support
Reorganization of meetings and schedules to keep mealtimes open and available for families to be home and together.
Create coalitions.
How well is our community promoting or supporting family mealtime?
Could we encourage organizations in our community to keep mealtime free from meetings and scheduled events? At least once a week?

33. How can schools promote?
Educate students
Inform parents
Promotion ideas
Designate “no practice” during mealtimes
Family style meals at school
Schools and parent-teacher organizations like PTA can make a big difference. Teachers can educate students and even have assignments that involve family meals. Right now we are providing parents with information. Other promotional ideas include hosting family meal events at school, putting promotions in newsletters or on posters. Some schools have been successful in having annual or monthly, or even weekly family nights with no scheduled events during mealtime.
As appropriate, have a discussion among the participants to generate ideas.

34. www.casafamilyday.org FamilyTable.info
Every year, on the fourth Monday in September, CASA teams up with Nick at Nite to host Family Day.
At the CASA family day web site you can download lots of ideas and information.
At the family table site you can register to participate in this year’s event.
This is a great thing for schools to promote to their students.

35. Strategies for family meals:
Plan ahead
Second strategy is planning ahead.
This involves knowing everyone’s schedules and working around them.
Meal planning is not commonly done, but it can be learned and once put into practice makes all the difference in the world.
Shop in advance and have food on hand that can be prepared in the time you have available.
Use convenience foods wisely. A packaged salad, pasta and pasta sauce take little time to get on the table.
Get the whole family involved in getting meals on the table. Mothers still do the majority of the work involved in getting a meal on the table – share this responsibility!!

36. Strategies for family meals:
Create positive atmosphere
Lastly, focus on each other. Turn off the TV and the radio, avoid answering the phone. When TV becomes the focus rather than the family, nutrition and other benefits of family meals goes down. So, turn off the set and talk to one another. Keep the atmosphere positive and involve everyone in the conversation.

37. Impossible Dream or Realistic Goal?
Family Meals:
Impossible Dream or Realistic Goal?
What do you think?
Can family meals become a more common occurrence for more families?
We don’t need to reminisce about the “good old days” and think that family meals are a dinosaur that is extinct.
Nor do we need to think that today’s lifestyle can’t merge with the dream of bringing families back together around the table. 2

38. Family Dinners,
This graph is also from the CASA survey of teens and this is encouraging. Between 1998 and 2005, more teens are having regular family meals than before. The trend is moving in the right direction. The messages promoting family meals appear to be making a difference.
The family meal is not dead!
2005 CASA National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse X: Teens and Parents

39. Family Mealtime Make it happen!
Any family can achieve family meals if they make it a priority, plan ahead and practice strategies to get meals created, and then come together for food and family fellowship.
As time allows, have audience share ideas they plan to implement to make mealtimes happen.

40. Family Meals spell S – U – C – C – E – S - S That spells SUCCESS!
If desired, for fun, you could challenge audience to list what each letter stands for.

41. This presentation on Family Mealtime was made possible by the Purdue University Center for Families’ Promoting Family Meals Project. For more information go to:
Pass out surveys to collect regarding family meals.
Return to:
Barbara Mayfield
Purdue University Dept of Foods and Nutrition
G-37 Stone Hall
700 West State Street
West Lafayette, IN