OPPapers.com

Family Meals Curb Eating Disorders

“Family meals curb girls eating disorder risk, but not in boys” by Rueters

In the following article, researchers correlated family meals with healthy eating habits in young adolescents. Dr. Nuemark from the University of Minnesota found that teen girls that ate one meal a day with their family throughout the week were one-third less likely to exhibit abnormal eating habits such as extreme dieting and bulimia. The simple act of eating together as a family provides an emotional shield against unrealistic weight management goals teenage girls all across the world struggle with. This article falls into two of the several family theories we have studied in class. The first theory, “Symbolic Interactionist Theory” focuses on how face to face interaction during meal time influences future behavior outside the home. The second, “Family Ecology Theory” on a micro level, examines interconnected behavior and roles that influence eating habits in both boys and girls (HDF slides, Family Theories).
There is only one study mentioned in the article that provides factual information about frequency of family meals and eating disorders. In order to make their conclusions valid, Dr. Nuemark and her colleagues analyzed the responses of Project EAT, a questionnaire geared towards both adolescent boys and girls in America. The researchers plan was to take the results of 1999 and 2004, analyze the total responses, and create a hypothesis of the responses. Dr. Nuemark hypothesized that study participants who reported eating more frequent family meals at the first assessment would be less likely to report disordered eating behavior five years later (Rueters). These researchers were pleased to find that the results were positively correlated in adolescent girls, but negatively correlated in adolescent boys. Why is that the case? How does increased mealtime decrease extreme weight control behavior in girls, yet increased these tendencies in boys? The only explanation or...