Children Who Eat Family Meals Are Slimmer
A new study has found that children who regularly sit down to family meals and get plenty of vegetables in their diet tend to be thinner than their peers.
Greek researchers interviewed 1,138 children between the ages 9 and 13 about their diets and physical activities. The team used information to identify five general diet and lifestyle patterns across the group.Â
One pattern was labeled the "dinner, cooked meals and vegetables" pattern. Children who followed this pattern had a high intake of vegetables, regularly sat down to a family dinner and typically had traditional "cooked" meals for lunch and dinner, rather than sandwiches and snack foods.
The children who fell into that pattern generally had a lower body mass index. They also had smaller waistlines and less body fat then their peers who did not fit the same pattern.
None of the other four diet-and-lifestyle patterns that the team identified were associated with children’s weight or body-fat levels.
The other patterns included "unstructured eating, fast food/sugary foods and sedentary lifestyle" pattern, and "high fiber," "breakfast," and "exercise, fruits and vegetables" patterns.
According to the researchers, led by Dr. Mary Yannakoulia of Harokopio University in Athens, it is not clear why those four categories failed to show a link to a child’s weight, while the family meal/vegetable pattern did.
However, the team wrote in the Journal of Pediatrics that the habits of sitting down to family dinner and having cooked meals could signify children who are closely sticking to the traditional Mediterranean diet. This diet is one that is rich in vegetables, olive oil, whole grains and fish.
A key limitation of the study is that it assessed children at one time point. Only a study that could follow a child through a period of time can help show whether those who follow a family meal/vegetable-type pattern are less prone to face obesity.
However, Yannakoulia and her colleagues wrote that the findings suggest that such an eating pattern stands as a "potential preventive approach" to combating childhood obesity. They note that it is also a "non-restrictive" way of eating that most children can live with.
Few studies have looked at the relationship between a children’s weight and their diet patterns.
Although it is generally believed that sitting down to a family dinner is healthy for a child, there has been little studies performed that show that actually doing so helps a kid stay slim.
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