ArticleAdaptive human behavior and physiology2017
Breaking Bread: the Functions of Social Eating.
Article in Adaptive human behavior and physiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 272 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Increasing Minimally Processed Food Intake in Depression via Commercial Meal Delivery: Qualitative Accounts of Participant Experiences.Nutrients · 2026Trial
- A Qualitative Exploration of Facilitators and Barriers to Early Time-Restricted Eating: Insights From a Randomised Controlled Trial.Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association · 2025Trial
- Network spillover effects associated with the ChooseWell 365 workplace randomized controlled trial to promote healthy food choices.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Trial
- Children's experiences of meals after obesity treatment: a qualitative follow-up four years after a randomized controlled trial.BMC pediatrics · 2022Trial
- Social engagement and loneliness in school-age autistic girls and boys.Women's health (London, England)Trial
- Commensality as community rebuilding: A qualitative study of physician shared meals in a hospital setting.Journal of hospital medicine · 2026Article
- Traditional Mediterranean Lifestyle: From a Heritage to a Legacy as an Inspirational Roadmap to a New Era.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- Review
- Eating Together, Eating Alone: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Associations Between Social Eating Contexts, Mealtime Emotions, Technology Use, and Loneliness in UK University Students.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Sugar-sweetened beverages: consumption, purchasing behaviour, and opinions about policy measures in a nationally representative panel of Dutch secondary school adolescents.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Dietary supply and reporting reliability during Antarctic overwintering under extreme isolation: a food image-based analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Food culture as a mechanism of social bonding and social identity in primates.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- The impact of ultra-processed foods on social development of adolescent: differences by gender and only child status.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- "I bought it, but I still don't know what it is": international students dealing with a new food culture in Norway - A qualitative study.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2025Article
- Review
- The challenges of eating out for young people with eating disorders: a thematic analysis of the perspectives of young people, parents and carers, and clinicians.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- "International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2025Article
- The assimilation affects research from three days' social facilitation of eating by using whole network autocorrelation analysis plus multilevel linear modeling: a normative analysis based on prospective cohort study data in the UK.Population health metrics · 2025Article
- Lasting impact: A co-led community-academic model for a sustainable community-based participatory research training program.Journal of public health research · 2025Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Communal eating, whether in feasts or everyday meals with family or friends, is a human universal, yet it has attracted surprisingly little evolutionary attention. I use data from a UK national stratified survey to test the hypothesis that eating with others provides both social and individual benefits. I show that those who eat socially more often feel happier and are more satisfied with life, are more trusting of others, are more engaged with their local communities, and have more friends they can depend on for support. Evening meals that result in respondents feeling closer to those with whom they eat involve more people, more laughter and reminiscing, as well as alcohol. A path analysis suggests that the causal direction runs from eating together to bondedness rather than the other way around. I suggest that social eating may have evolved as a mechanism for facilitating social bonding.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.