Kids in the Kitchen: Cooking Challenges

Family Dinners = Healthier, Smarter Kids

Family connections made at the dinner table provide enormous benefits for children. Families that diner together tend to have a healthier, more well-adjusted children. Studies indicate that the more often children and teens eat with their parents--and the happier, more structured these mealtimes are--the more the children gain these benefits:

- Better nutrition

- Better language and literacy

- Fewer eating disorders

- Fewer risky behaviors

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia Univeristy (Sept. 2005) found that compared with teens who dine frequently with their families (five to seven times a week), teens who have fewer than three family dinners per week are:

- Two and a half times likelier to smoke cigarettes

- More than one and a half times likelier to drink alcohol

- Almost three times likelier to try marijuana

Says Dr. Harold Koplewicz, director of New York University's Child Study Center: "Mealtime becomes a way for families to bond. It shows children they have access to a caring adult."

(from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner)

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