Family meals linked to less girl drug use
MINNEAPOLIS (UPI) -- Parents regularly sharing meals with their teenage girls may help lessen the risk the girls will smoke or drink, U.S. researchers say. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Medicine, found no significant difference in substance use between boys who had regular family meals and those who did not. The researchers surveyed 806 Minnesota adolescents -- 45.4 percent boys and 54.6 percent girls -- about meals and use of marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol in 1998 to 1999 at about age 13. They followed up with a mailed survey five years later. In the second survey, girls reporting five or more family meals per week had significantly less substance use than did the females who did not have regular family meals. The girls who had regular meals had about half the odds of substance use.
MINNEAPOLIS (UPI) -- Parents regularly sharing meals with their teenage girls may help lessen the risk the girls will smoke or drink, U.S. researchers say. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Medicine, found no significant difference in substance use between boys who had regular family meals and those who did not. The researchers surveyed 806 Minnesota adolescents -- 45.4 percent boys and 54.6 percent girls -- about meals and use of marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol in 1998 to 1999 at about age 13. They followed up with a mailed survey five years later. In the second survey, girls reporting five or more family meals per week had significantly less substance use than did the females who did not have regular family meals. The girls who had regular meals had about half the odds of substance use.
"Unfortunately we don't really know why we see this benefit for girls and not boys," study lead author Marla Eisenberg of the University of Minnesota said in a statement. "There is some evidence that girls and boys communicate and interact differently with their families, so it's possible that the conversations about behavioral expectations or the subtle 'checking in' that can happen during shared meals might be understood differently by girls and boys."
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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