Sharing the dinner table with your kids could be a big step in the battle against childhood obesity.
A new study in the journal Pediatrics says frequent family meals are significantly related to nutritional health in children and adolescents.
Kids who eat with their parents 3 or more times per week are 24 percent more likely to eat healthy food and more likely to be in a normal weight range than those who don't.
Research say benefits include a 12 percent reduction in the odds of being overweight, a 20 percent reduction in eating unhealthy foods, and a 35 percent reduction in disordered eating.
Disordered eating includes binge-eating, purging, taking diet pills or laxatives, vomiting, or skipping meals.
Researchers from the Family Resiliency Center, Human and Community Development, at the University of Illinois, examined 17 studies regarding being overweight and obese, food consumption and eating patterns, and disordered eating. These studies looked at a total of 182,836 children and adolescents ages 2-17.
The CDC says childhood obesity affects approximately 12.5 million children and teens nationwide.
Obese youth are more likely than youth of normal weight to become overweight or obese adults, and more at risk for associated future adult health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis.
In Rhode Island, health officials say one in five children start kindergarten being overweight.
Care New England says 25 percent of all Rhode Island children are overweight or obese.
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