Family Meals, At Home, Everybody, Most Every Night??? - Just Do It - It's Worth It!

The New York Times today has a front-page article, "Familes With Full Plates, Sitting Down to Dinner" extolling the virtues of families eating dinner together.

The article is a bit of a hodge-podge - a basic broth of tales of a couple families going to great lengths to eat together as a family most nights despite hectic and conflicting schedules seasoned with sprinklings of statistics and quotes from experts regarding the health and emotional benefits of families eating together.

A nice starter, but not nearly satisfying enough for anyone with a healthy appetite regarding this important topic.

If you really want something substantive to sink your teeth into, I recommend reading the book:

"The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happier" by Miriam Weinstein, Steerforth Press, 2005. This is a well-researched work that is surprisingly easy to read given its thorough discussion of numerous research studies and the author's own field visits with families.

Best of all, it is written in an empathetic tone (not preachy like yours truly!) and contains loads of practical tips for making family dinners a daily reality in your own life.