Why are family meals so difficult?

Work-life balance

Research confirms that achieving a healthy work-life balance is easier said than done. Our working lives can easily spill into our family time through any stress we carry with us, bringing home fatigue and tension that we experienced during the day. And we often use food choices to help us cope with our difficult work life.

Stress

Studies show that we often cope with our stress through changing our choices around mealtimes. We choose foods for our families that we think will help us reduce our feelings of stress – such as fatty and sugary foods.

Lack of time

We try to reduce the time and effort we put into our meals, choosing fast food more often. We may try to reduce expectations for our food and our eating, accepting plainer meals and cutting out vegetables for example.

Busy schedules

We may decide that other activities are more important than family mealtimes altogether, scheduling after-school classes or working over-time. Our lives are often over-scheduled and family meals are undervalued.

Meal stress

And to be honest, family meals are not always pleasant either. Dinner-time battles may break out between family members. Children can refuse to eat meals they dislike. Teenagers may prefer to spend their time texting or playing games.

But remember – You are definitely not alone in all this. It can be incredibly challenging to address the work and family conditions that are causing these stress in the first place. However, the following 4 tips are tried and tested to help make family meals that little bit easier.

Family meals can become easier.

Studies show that family meal times take practice. Let’s have a look at some tips that may help us make family meals happen on at least one more day this week:

1. Make a commitment:

Turn off technology. Schedule family meals like you would schedule any other appointments in your day. Go easy on yourself and be flexible! For example, bring a picnic to the evening sports training, schedule dinner with one parent and dessert with another. And if dinner is not possible, plan to sit together for breakfast instead!

2. Make it simple:

• Plan your meals in advance. Up to 46% of us do not plan our meals in advance, leading increased stress when piecing together meals from the store cupboard, and possibly more hasty calls to fast food restaurants. Plan a meal for a few nights ahead, complete a grocery list once you know which ingredients to get, and you will feel less overwhelmed when preparing your meal each evening.
• And cook in bulk! Cook an extra large portion one night, and simply freeze some of it for those nights when you know you may need to work late, or simply don’t feel like cooking! I will give you a great recipe in an upcoming post for a simple, veggie laden Bolognese sauce that you can easily cook in bulk and freeze for later!
• Talking about Bolognese sauce – a sauce is a great way to squeeze some new veggies into your evening meal. They don’t like broccoli? By cutting up the broccoli into small pieces, and mixing into a pasta, chilli or curry sauce, you may be able to introduce new flavours that will help the fussy eaters to get used to eating more variety. Frozen veg is just as good as the fresh stuff, so it’s a great one to keep in the freezer for when time does not allow for veggie cutting.

3. Make it fun:

• Get the whole family involved in the meal prep. From simply stirring the pot full of sauce, to peeling and cutting vegetables – tailor the meal-time chore to the level you feel comfortable. Plenty of praise will push their self-esteem through the roof, and may even encourage them to try foods they do not usually enjoy.
• Put on some fun music while cooking, or let the kids choose their own music when they help out.
• Why not organise family master chef, letting each family member prepare a dish each day. Get the creative juices flowing and encourage them to learn new cooking skills along the way.

4. And lastly, make it matter:

Make the most of the conversations that can be had at the dinner table. It’s a rare opportunity for all family members to actually be in the same room. Ask open ended questions, encouraging everyone to talk freely. Share stories of childhood memories, of grandparent’s lives. Ask about dreams, concerns and opinions. Some great conversation starters could be:

• If you could make a school that was all about fun, what would your classes be about?
• What is your favourite talent?
• What is the funniest thing that happened to you today?
• What is the most caring thing you have done for someone this week?

I hope you have found some inspirations here to help you make that extra family meal a priority this week. To reap in those fantastic benefits for our minds and diets, remember to: Make a commitment, make it simple, make it fun and make it matter!