A rare Sunday post for me. Today in the semi-annual LDS General Conference, Elder Oaks quoted research from a recent study at Columbia’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse about the relationship between teens’ academic achievement and how frequently they eat dinner with their family. BusinessWeek summarized the findings as follows:
Their research has found that children who have a regular family mealtime are less likely to smoke, drink, use illegal drugs, experiment with sex at a young age, and get into fights. Further, these children are at lower risk for suicidal thoughts and are more likely to do better in school. Teens that have frequent family dinners are more likely to be emotionally content, to work harder, to have positive peer relationships, and to have healthier eating habits. Family mealtime is the single strongest predictor of academic achievement scores and low rates of behavioral problems, regardless of race, gender, education, age of parents, income, or family size.
I just want to highlight the last sentence there - Family mealtime is the single strongest predictor of academic achievement scores and low rates of behavioral problems, regardless of race, gender, education, age of parents, income, or family size. The study compares teens who eat dinner with their family five or more times per week with those who eat dinner with their families two times or fewer per week. You can complain about traditional family values all you want, but there’s something here.