ReviewInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
Beyond the Normative Family Meal Promotion: A Narrative Review of Qualitative Results about Ordinary Domestic Commensality.
Review in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Children's experiences of meals after obesity treatment: a qualitative follow-up four years after a randomized controlled trial.BMC pediatrics · 2022Trial
- Towards a Theory of "Food Care": A Review of Health Literature Examining the Processes of Caring for the Food Needs of School-Aged Children.Nutrition reviews · 2026Review
- Social Eating Among Child and Adult Hospital Patients: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- From plate to post: exploring representations of #familymeals through a content analysis of Instagram.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- Impact of a Recipe Kit Scheme (BRITE Box) on Cooking and Food-Related Behaviours of Children and Families: Exploring Parental/Carer Views.Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association · 2025Article
- Comparing eating and mealtime experiences in families of children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dual diagnosis.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Unpacking family meals: state-of-the-art review critiquing the Western ideals, positioning and promotion of family meals.Health promotion international · 2025Review
- 'Eating with Others': planning, developing and optimising a self-management intervention to promote social eating for patients living with and beyond head and neck cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2024Article
- Influence of age and self-stigmatization on social eating and drinking issues in French outpatients living with and beyond head and neck cancer: a mixed-method study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2024Article
- Identifying the barriers and facilitators to fruit and vegetable consumption in rural Australian adults: a mixed methods analysis.Nutrition journal · 2024Article
- Individual and family factors correlated with children's fruit consumption.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Transmission of food literacy to youth in Norwegian childcare institutions - a qualitative study.Food & nutrition research · 2024Article
- The family meal, a ritual frozen in time; an Australian grounded theory study.Health promotion international · 2023Article
- Situating the Father: Strengthening Interdisciplinary Collaborations between Sociology, History and the Emerging POHaD Paradigm.Nutrients · 2022Review
- Family Food Environments and Their Association with Primary and Secondary Students' Food Consumption in Beijing, China: A Cross-Sectional Study.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Culinary Solitude in the Diet of People with Functional Diversity.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- What Is Commensality? A Critical Discussion of an Expanding Research Field.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There exists a normative representation of family meals in contemporary Western societies which is promoted as imperative through public health programs, larger discourses and by some studies in the nutritional and public health research fields. Family meals, also called domestic commensality, are represented as convivial events and are associated with positive health and wellbeing outcomes but there is minimal evidence to show they are beneficial for family members and it is not known which aspect of the family meal could be responsible for these alleged benefits. This normative family meal image is based on a representation of the family as a peaceful unit exempt from external constraints. This narrative literature review of qualitative studies of family meals seeks to put forward the underlying premises of this representation and compare it with reports about actual practices. The results emphasize that eating together is still practiced and remains valued by family members, which is in contrast to discourses lamenting the decline of the family meal. However, the valorisation and recurrence of family meals depends on class, gender and cultural positions. There is a gap between the norm of healthy or convivial and achievable family meals, which can reinforce the so-called "mental load" and "emotion work" of those in charge of feeding the family and heighten inequalities within the household. In fact, there are many challenges to family meals which originate from external constraints or are inherent aspects of family life. The results from this review suggest that we should focus on family meals by taking into account the food work surrounding it and focussing on the interactional aspects of family meals. Ethnographic methods allow the researcher to observe the diversities and complexities of commensality as well as family dynamics and, in doing so, could provide more realistic representations of eating within the family.
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