Project Abstract:
Regular family meals have been associated with a reduction in certain risk behaviors in adolescence, including substance misuse, sexual risk, school failure, eating disorders, and violence. They have also been associated with increases in healthful eating habits and a reduced risk of overweight and obesity. In all fields, most studies of family meals have examined the association between family meal frequency and the various outcomes, but have not been designed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. Researchers hypothesize that family meals facilitate open parent-child communication, which in turn leads to a reduction in problem behaviors. For the prevention of overweight and obesity, it is likely that parental modeling of healthful eating habits and higher nutritional value of the meals served additionally contribute to the effect. However, no measures exist that assess: 1) the potentially protective components of farnily meals or 2) the underlying mechanisms through which these components contribute to the array of beneficial effects. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to conduct 64 qualitative interviews with parents and youth (aged 6-16) to develop parent and child versions of an instrument that more fully capture the components of family meals, which may be protective across multiple risk outcomes. Elucidating the underlying mechanisms of the association between family meals and a reduction in risk behaviors and overweight among adolescents will inform the development of interventions designed to promote and maximize the benefits of family meals. This T3 project will foster an interdisciplinary collaboration between a social and behavioral scientist and nutritionists across two Tufts University schools (TUSM and Friedman) and two Clinical and Translational Science Institutes (Tufts and Harvard).
