Family mealtime against adolescents’ drinking, drug use, and other risk behaviours. Then and now.

Abstract

During adolescence, the frequency of family meals may play an important role in both counteracting risk behaviours (e.g., drugs and alcohol use, delinquency, etc.) and in promoting healthy life-styles. Objective. The aim of the present review is to chronologically order and discuss evidence supporting or disconfirming family mealtime’s effectiveness against adolescents‘ risk behaviours. Method. The present work integrated two search-strategies: scientific databanks strategies and retrospective research on sources. Inter-rater quality assessment was applied to obtain three clusters of literature; pioneering studies about nutritional habits, last decades’ evidence, and challenges for future research. Results. Effectiveness of family mealtime in preventing adolescents’ risk behaviours and in promoting healthy lifestyles and positive outcomes is discussed. Conclusions. Open theoretical and methodological questions emerged such as the lack of scientific consensus on how to measure the family mealtime frequency or the need to provide qualitative assessments about the family mealtime experience, among others.