Junk-food science - the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health

Breaking bread with family and friends is what keeps humankind together. Meanwhile, per the below article, we have a so-called "rich body of data: the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health" (is your jaw still in place?), based on a "sample," questioning this essential part of our humanity -- sharing food together.

Of course, so-called "studies" as the above-mentioned "peer-reviewed" (this is how it justifies itself) are based on "questions" -- but the questions frame the answers.

What did Gertrude Stein say, when asked what is the answer? The question.

Sample the below "research," and I hope you won't have indigestion.

I would invite the authors (one of whom, to cite another jaw-breaker, designates herself as "associate professor of policy analysis and management") to lunch, but of course they -- the learned authors -- would probably consider that (to be invited to lunch) an efficiency-breaking travesty.

They would, doubtless, much prefer buying "food" at a "take-out" place and chewing, in solitude, in a cubicle, sans famille (or family friends), just as children (and their colleagues?) should.

O tempora, o mores ...

Is the Family Dinner Overrated?
By ANN MEIER and KELLY MUSICK, New York Times

DOZENS of studies in the past decade have found that teenagers who regularly eat dinner with their families are healthier, happier, do better in school and engage in fewer risky behaviors than teenagers who don’t regularly eat family dinners. These findings have helped give dinnertime an almost magical aura and have led to no small amount of stress and guilt among busy moms and dads.

But does eating together really make for better-adjusted kids? Or is it just that families that can pull off a regular dinner also tend to have other things (perhaps more money, or more time) that themselves improve child well-being?

Our research, published last month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marriage and Family, shows that the benefits of family dinners aren’t as strong or as lasting as previous studies suggest.

We considered a rich body of data: the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. This is a nationally representative sample of about 18,000 adolescents who were interviewed twice, a year apart, in middle school or high school, and then again in young adulthood (between ages 18 and 26). They answered detailed questions about their lives and well-being, and their parents also answered questions on topics like income and living arrangements.

In our study, we analyzed how the frequency of family dinners was associated with three indicators of a young person’s well-being: depressive symptoms; drug and alcohol use; and delinquency (a tally of many behaviors, from petty shoplifting to physical assault).

First, we looked at the associations between family dinners and these measures of well-being at just a single point in time, in adolescence. Without controlling for any other factors, the associations between family dinners and well-being were quite strong and in line with past research. But the associations were far less striking after we accounted, with the help of the data, for the ways in which families who did and didn’t eat together tended to differ: for instance, in the quality of family relationships, in activities with a parent (a tally of things like moviegoing and helping with schoolwork), in parental monitoring (things like curfews and approving clothing) and in family resources (things like income and whether both parents were in the household).

To give an example: without controlling for such factors, we found that 73 percent of adolescents who seldom ate with their families (twice per week) reported drug and alcohol use, compared with 55 percent of those who ate with their families regularly (seven days a week). But controlling for these factors, the gap was cut in half, from 18 percentage points to 9.

Next, as a more stringent test of causality, we looked at adolescents over the course of a year and examined how changes in the frequency of family dinners related to changes in well-being. If adolescents were eating family dinners more often a year later, were they better off? We found that following teenagers over a year provided even weaker evidence for the causal effects of family dinners on adolescent well-being — only the effect of family dinners on teen depressive symptoms held up. There was no effect on drug and alcohol use or delinquency.

Finally, we looked at whether family dinners in the teenage years had effects that persisted into young adulthood. Again, evidence for benefits was thin. We found no direct, lasting effects of family dinners on mental health, drug and alcohol use or delinquency. (Of course, it may be that family dinners have a stronger or more lasting effect on behavior that we didn’t study, like eating habits.)

What, then, should you think about dinnertime? Though we are more cautious than other researchers about the unique benefits of family dinners, we don’t dismiss the possibility that they can matter for child well-being. Given that eating is universal and routine, family meals offer a natural opportunity for parental influence: there are few other contexts in family life that provide a regular window of focused time together. (A study by Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Use asked teens when, apart from dinner, they talked to parents about their lives: a vast majority said it was when driving in the car.)

But our findings suggest that the effects of family dinners on children depend on the extent to which parents use the time to engage with their children and learn about their day-to-day lives. So if you aren’t able to make the family meal happen on a regular basis, don’t beat yourself up: just find another way to connect with your kids.

Ann Meier is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. Kelly Musick is an associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University.