Children who regularly eat breakfast and dinner with their parents are considerably less likely to be overweight, according to a new European study.
Experts said that parents who ate with their children were not only more likely to be ensuring meals were nutritious and healthy, but that togetherness at mealtimes was a marker for “family cohesion”, which carried other health benefits.
In a study of nearly 8,000 children living in eight European countries, researchers found that those who ate breakfast with their parents five to seven times per week were as much as 40 per cent less likely to be overweight, than those who had a family breakfast just two to three times a week.
The effect was similar, but slightly smaller, for dinner. Children from families which ate together more regularly were 30 per cent less likely to be overweight than those who sat down for dinner less often.
Intriguingly, the same effect was not seen in children who regularly ate lunch with their parents, who were in fact more likely to be overweight, said researchers from the University of Adger in Norway.