Variation in Associations Between Family Dinners and Adolescent Well-Being.

ABSTRACT: Empirical evidence and conventional wisdom suggest that family dinners are associated with positive outcomes for youth. Recent research using fixed-effects models as a more stringent test of causality suggests a more limited role of family meals in protecting children from risk. Estimates of average effects, however, may mask important variation in the link between family meals and well-being; in particular, family meals may be more or less helpful based on the quality of family relationships. Using 2 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 17,977), this study extended recent work to find that family dinners have little benefit when parent-child relationships are weak but contribute to fewer depressive symptoms and less delinquency among adolescents when f

SUBMITTER: Meier A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3916153 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature