‘Family Meal’ Ideal Is Stressful, Impossible for Many Families

And there are some families where relationships are so toxic that family meals are not healthy psychologically.

http://news.ncsu.edu/2014/09/bowen-out-of-the-kitchen-2014/

Summer 2014
Dr. Sarah Bowen, Dr. Sinikka Elliott, Matt Shipman

Magazines, television and other popular media increasingly urge families to return to the kitchen, stressing the importance of home-cooked meals and family dinners to physical health and family well-being. But new research findings from North Carolina State University show that home cooking and family meals place significant stresses on many families – and are simply impossible for others.

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“We found that middle-class, working-class, and poor families faced some similar challenges,” says Dr. Sinikka Elliott, an associate professor of sociology at NC State who co-authored the paper. “For example, mothers from all backgrounds reported difficulty in finding time to prepare meals that everyone in the family would be willing to eat.”

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But, while all families reported financial considerations as a factor in meal planning, finances affected family decisions in very different ways.

For example, middle-class mothers were concerned that they weren’t able to give their kids the best possible meals because they couldn’t afford to buy all organic foods.

Poor families, meanwhile, faced more severe restrictions. Their financial limitations made it more difficult for them to afford fresh produce, find transportation to grocery stories, or have access to the kitchen tools needed to prepare meals – such as sharp knives, stoves, or pots and pans.

“Poor mothers also skipped meals and stood in long lines at non-profit food pantries to provide food for their children,” Bowen says.

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