In today’s busy lifestyle, family sharing meals together can be challenging.  But the benefits of family meals are worth the effort it takes to gather the troops.

Benefits of family meals for children

• Less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs.
• Less at risk of depression and developing eating disorders.
• Do better at school and have higher self-esteem! 

But getting your whole family sitting at the table to eat can have its challenges. Maybe you have a picky eater. Or someone in the family that has a food allergy/ intolerance.  Here are some tips from our Global News segment on how to make your family eating dinner together stress-free and fun. 

You can also watch the segment or read the transcript below.  

Try these stress-free family dinner tips

Be accommodating without catering

Try deconstructed meals to customize to preferences.  Make meals that can use the same ingredients, but family members can pick and choose their preferences, like tacos, or taco salad, fajita, pizza, wraps, burgers, cobb salad, or soup. 

Decided on dinner table rules

As a family decide on a set of dinner table rules. 

For example, No screens, or toys at the table.  Must use table manners, “yes please, no thank you.” Don’t talk with your mouth full.  No playing with food.  Wait your turn to speak.

Get everyone involved in the dinner process. Assign jobs like, setting the table or clearing the table to family members.

Use some dinner conversation starters

Stress or pressure to eat doesn’t make dinner time pleasant. Try to keep the dinner conversation light.  Don’t focus so much on the food that you are serving, focus on connecting over the meal. 

Conversation starters for family dinners

• If you could have a superpower, what would it be? 
• What is your favourite thing about the winter? 
• What was the best part of your day?
• If you could be a famous person for a week, who would you be and why?
• Would you rather……this or that?
• If you could live anywhere where would you live?
• What is your favourate (thing, food, place activity)?
• Who is the nicest person you know?

You can watch the Global News segment here or read the full transcript below 

Full transcript – Bringing Back Family Dinners with Registered Dietitian Susan Watson

Kahla Evans – Winnipeg Global News Reporter:

Well with the slower pace of pandemic life, you may find you and your household bringing back the good old fashioned family dinners around the dinner table. And we have registered dietitian, Susan Watson, joining us right now with advice on how to navigate those family meals in the right direction, the peaceful direction you want them to go in. And Susan, to start us off, there’s actually a ton of benefits to gathering together and eating meals with those that you live with.

Susan Watson – Winnipeg Dietitian:

Yes, thanks for having me here today. And the research that we see when it comes to having that family meal, so that’s everybody around the table, sharing stories and talking and eating together, we see that children are less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs. We see less risk for depression, as well as developing eating disorders and kids do better in school and have higher self esteem. So there’s so many benefits and this is really just a small list. So we want to get everybody around the table to have that dinner time meal.

Kahla Evans – Winnipeg Global News Reporter:

I can just hear and feel parents and caregivers everywhere, watching and listening, celebrating that list of benefits, but maybe not celebrating putting together a meal because we’ve got picky eaters. Some of us eat a little differently than others. We’re talking allergies. And you would know with your line of work, how do we have a stress free meal? How do we kind of, I don’t want to say cater to everybody’s needs, but make sure everybody’s well-fed?

Susan Watson – Winnipeg Dietitian:

So there are lots of reasons why the ideal get around the table and have a pleasant meal doesn’t happen and sometimes there’s a lot of stress. You’ve got your picky eater, your food allergies or intolerances, but also parents tend to maybe sometimes put a little bit of pressure on the kids to clean their plate or to eat well. And so some tips to really navigate some of that. Tip number one, let’s look at being accommodating without catering, so I like to recommend families do what’s called deconstructed meals. So you don’t have to short-order cook to make everybody happy. It’s just coming up with different meal ideas that use the same ingredients that you can put out and people can pick and choose based on the preferences.

Susan Watson – Winnipeg Dietitian:

So some of my family favorites are homemade tacos where you can put out all the ingredients and everybody can assemble what they like. That can also be turned into something like taco salad or fajitas. Pizza’s a great one where you can have the base and everybody could put their own toppings or wraps or burgers, or even something like Cobb salad and soup. So that the deconstructing meal is a really great way to again, have everybody be able to pick what they want without any pressure.

Kahla Evans – Winnipeg Global News Reporter:

Oh, that all sounds so delicious. Susan.

Susan Watson – Winnipeg Dietitian:

It’s fun to do, but it’s also important to have some dinner time rules. So I know that might sound kind of harsh, but when we’re trying to get around the table, there are things that we can do to make things easier. So one of the things that we want to say is no screens, so no tablets, no toys, because this just takes away from that dinner time together, as well as teaching the family members table manners like, “Yes, please. No, thank you.” Don’t talk with your mouth full. Don’t be gross. Wait your turn to speak. That’s one we’re struggling with right now is my little one likes to always jump in and not wait her turn. But kids can also then also learn to set the table and clearing the table as well.

Kahla Evans – Winnipeg Global News Reporter:

Okay. I love those rules. What happens if our screens are away, but there’s no conversation happening? I remember being younger and my poor mom, “How was your day? How was school? What did you do? “Fine. Fine. Nothing.” And that was all I gave her, that poor woman.

Susan Watson – Winnipeg Dietitian:

Yes. So the idea is to try to ask questions that are, open-ended where we could actually have a conversation. So, “How was your day?” will elicit, “Oh it was fine.” Right? But if you say something, a fun question like, “What was your favourite part of the day?” Or we can have conversation starters like, “If you could have a superpower, what would it be?” Or, “What was your favourite thing about this winter?” With the weather right now, one of our favourites is, “If you could be a famous person for a week, who would you be and why?” So this is eliciting conversation that’s going to be more than just, “Fine, Mom. My day was fine.”

Kahla Evans – Winnipeg Global News Reporter:

Oh, this all sounds so good. You really have me thinking Susan. For all of our listeners, our viewers out there that want more from you, want to work with you, where should we be sending folks this morning?

Susan Watson – Winnipeg Dietitian:

They can head over to our website at www.alittlenutrition.com.

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