Healthy Sandy puts on a regular campaign to encourage all households in Sandy to eat together as a family as often as possible. Eating together as a family is associated with more personal and societal positive outcomes than any other thing. For example, research by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) shows that eating family meals together is positively associated with

• Improved dietary quality
• Weight control
• Enhanced language acquisition among kids
• Improved academic performance
• Improved social skills and family unity

Kids who eat dinner with their families often are also more likely to

• Do well in school
• Be emotionally content
• Have positive peer relationships
• Have lower levels of stress and be bored less often
• Be at lower risk for thoughts of suicide

Further research by CASA also shows that teens who have dinner with their families two nights a week or less are:

• Four times more likely to smoke cigarettes
• Three times more likely to smoke marijuana
• Nearly twice as likely to drink alcohol
• More likely to have sex at a younger age
• More likely to get into fights

The Healthy Sandy Partnership would like all households in Sandy to make eating meals together as a family a priority.

For more information on the research behind family meals, visit the CASA website.

• Family Meal Brochure