Why who you eat with is just as important as what you eat
By Jordan Muirhead
(Source: Huffpost)
There’s no “I” in Meal
When was the last time that you shared a meal with people you enjoy being around? Seriously, think about it.
Hopefully, your answer is “yesterday!,” or sometime recently, but the sad truth is that for many of us, it’s not. A survey conducted in 2019 found that only 29% of Americans claimed to eat dinner at a table every day, and according to a 2022 poll, the average American only shares 3 dinners a week with their loved ones. In a study conducted by the University of Oxford, 1 in 5 people said that sharing weekly dinners with others was a rare occurrence.
It wasn’t until my first semester of college – when I was a state away from my family and high school friends – that I truly appreciated the emotional importance of communal meals. I had found myself sitting at my desk, facing a white wall, and eating dinner from a to-go box…for the fifth night in a row. The culmination of me working through a few dinners that week, plus my friends being out of town, led me to eating alone in my dorm for five straight nights. The isolation and loneliness I felt hit me. I found myself desperately wishing I was back home, eating dinner around the kitchen table with my family.
Eating with others is crucial to our physical, emotional, and mental health. While it can be difficult to accomplish due to our busy schedules, sharing meals with others should be a priority of ours.
Communal Food & Health
(Source: Science Friday)
Don’t get me wrong – sometimes, especially after a long day, eating a meal alone and in peace is good. But it shouldn’t become “the norm.” Study after study shows the physical, emotional, and mental benefits of eating with others.
On the physical side of things, studies have found that eating with others tends to make us eat healthier and slower. Slow eating has many benefits including better digestion, increased dental health, and it can lead to reduced food intake. Furthermore, due to the uptake of solo mealtimes, processed foods are aimed at solo diners. Additionally, when people eat together, they are more prone to having a ritual beforehand, such as saying prayer or giving thanks. There is some evidence that shows these rituals can lead to better food choices due to the feelings of discipline that partakers get after performing them. Multiple studies have shown the correlation between eating meals together and easier weight control.
Sharing meals with others is just as important for mental and emotional health as it is for physical health. Research has shown that sharing meals helps with social bonding. Similarly, researchers at the University of Oxford have found that eating in a community increases one’s sense of wellbeing, contentedness, and closeness to the community. Having social relationships with others is key to our mental health, as, according to News in Health, they are likely to reduce the risk of depression. A 2022 survey found that 67% of people said that eating communal meals reminds them of the importance of community. Additionally, 54% of the people surveyed reported that sharing meals with others also reminded them to approach life at a slower pace.
Relationship and community is necessary for our health, and sitting down together at mealtimes is a key way to make sure we get the social interactions and bonding that we need.
Changes You Can Make Today
(Source: Your Teen)
As mentioned previously, eating with others is not always easy due to busy, conflicting schedules. However, the evidence and statistics in this post point to the importance of sharing a meal with others. Below is a list of practical ways that you can implement to increase communal eating in your life:
– Schedule Meals
According to a 2022 survey, 65% of people who said it was difficult to have communal meals said that the reason why was due to differing schedules. It is hard to find times to share meals when people have differing schedules. This is what a text string between me and three of my friends (all of us being in college) looked like last week:
Person A: Dinner tonight?
Person B: Yeah! Time?
Person C: 5:00?
Person B: Can’t, I have a study group until 7:00.
Person D: 7:30?
Person A: I have club practice from 7:15 to 9. How about 4:30?
Person D: I have a lab until 4:50
It can be hard to find times that work for everyone, which is why scheduling meals is not a bad idea. Rutgers recommends making communal meals a priority, and scheduling meal times that work for everyone. One of my friends and I schedule lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:00 am. It is one of the few times a week we get to see each other in the midst of our busy schedules. It can seem tedious and strange to schedule mealtimes weeks in advance, but proves to be crucial when it comes to busy college-lives and social eating.
– Go Outside Your Comfort Zone
There will be times where your schedules, no matter how hard you try, just will not match up with the schedules of people you want to eat with. When that happens, rather than eating alone, go to a dining hall and try to find someone to eat with! The dining halls are usually full of people, and many people can be seen eating alone. It’s not easy, but taking a step of courage and asking if you can eat with someone – or a group of people – can turn your solo eating into communal eating.
– Break The Bad Habits
Did you know that 65% of U.S. professionals report eating lunch alone at their desks ? If you’re reading this post, you’re probably still in college, but you, too, will likely become a professional at some point. If you catch yourself eating lunch at your desk, it’s time to break the bad habit so that you don’t find yourself eating lunch alone at your workplace when you become a professional, too.
I encourage you to get away from your desk for lunch. Find a new place of scenery – go outside, go to the cafeteria or a restaurant, go to the library. Even if you’re eating alone, making a point of getting away from your desk for lunch will break your habit of eating lunch alone, and will make you more available to eating meals with others.
– FaceTime
I have grown up my entire life eating dinner with my family. From the moment I popped out of the womb, there was a seat at the dinner table for me. I had dinner every weekday with my family, as we shared the best and worst parts of our days, and on Sundays, the whole extended family would get together for a meal. This was one of the hardest things to leave behind when coming to college.
However, thanks to technology and things like FaceTime and Skype, there is a way for me to eat dinner with my family (even though we’re hundreds of miles apart physically) when I want to. On days where I’m feeling especially homesick, I’ll text my mom two words: When’s dinner? After getting a time, I grab a to-go meal from the dining hall and FaceTime from my dorm.
Is FaceTime the same as being face-to-face? No. In fact, there is little evidence currently as to whether this has the same effects as eating with someone physically, but sometimes it’s our best option, and that’s okay. So on the days that you want to share a meal with someone you can’t be face-to-face with, pull out the phone or computer, grab your meal, and hit “Call.”
– “Big Lunch”
In Britain, there is something called Big Lunch. Big Lunch, which is put on by the Eden Project, has been around since 2009, and its aim is to help people make connections through sharing a meal. In 2022, 17.2 million people around Britain got out into their community and shared lunch with other people. Try and picture what would happen if Colorado State did something similar to Big Lunch, with students and staff of all ages, genders, races, and religions, coming to share one big lunch – imagine all of the connections that would be made! In order to promote social eating and community bonding, Colorado State University should promote more communal eating events, just like Britain hosts their Big Lunch.
Communal Food = A Better You
(Source: Tagg Magazine)
Eating meals with others is key to our health and our quality of life. Although our busy schedules (which seem to always clash with those of our friends) make communal eating difficult, eating with others should be a priority of ours. Taking certain steps – like scheduling meals or finding a new friend in the dining hall – can help us make sharing a meal a common part of our everyday lives.
About the Author
My name is Jordan Muirhead, and I am a freshman at Colorado State University. I am majoring in Political Science with a concentration in Environmental Policy, as well as Early Childhood Education. I believe in the importance of a well-balanced diet, as well as the fact that meals are not just about food. Who we eat with is just as important as what we eat, which is why I wanted to write this blog.
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