A Tavola con la Famiglia: The Family Meal, Body Image, and Eating Disorders among Italian Adolescent Females

Although M.F.K. Fisher may have meant this in a literal, chronological sense,
implying that eating should be the first task at the table, recent research shows that sitting
down for a meal should be a family's first priority for health reasons. Studies have linked
the family meal with nutritional benefits for adolescents, such as increased intake of
healthy foods (Fulkerson, Neumark-Sztainer, and Story 2006; Hammons and Fiese 2011;
Videon and Manning 2003). Research also shows that it is not just the food consumed
during family meals that impacts adolescents' health but also something in the ritual
itself. For adolescents, family meals have been inversely correlated with risky behaviors
including eating disorders (Hammons and Feise 2011). One of the few existing crossnational studies of family meal behavior compared family meal frequency across 31
countries for fifteen-year-old students. Of students from all 31 groups, the American
respondents reported the second lowest frequency of family meals. Conversely, the
respondents who reported the highest frequency of family meals were those in Italy
(Davidson and Hauthier 2010).
The famous Italian proverb, "a tavola non s'invecchia, 11 translates to, "at the
table, one doesn't age." This adage implies that mealtimes are a sacred time and they
remain central to Italian family life. Sociologically, the food culture in Italy appears to
differ from that found in the United States. While the US has experienced an increase in
the number of fast food establishments, Italy has retained its rich food-oriented culture
despite industrialization. Unlike in the United States, economic growth in Italy did not
lead to considerable increases in fast food consumption and home cooking still remains a
significant part of Italian culture (Capatti and Montanari 2003).
This pilot study attempts to examine if the pattern found among adolescents in the
US--an inverse correlation between family meal frequency and cases of eating disorders--
is the same in Italy. It aims to identify potential protective factors that mitigate disordered
eating in Italy with the goal of informing public health approaches for the prevention and
treatment of eating disorders in Italy and in the United States. This study attempts to
answer the following question: Is there a relationship between rates of disordered eating
and family meal frequency and patterns in Italy?