Do you schedule and take part in family mealtime rituals? While many of us strive to spend quality time with our families, sitting down together for a meal is one simple way that’s often overlooked. Eating healthy meals together as a family not only helps you reconnect and build solid relationships – but it can also be beneficial to your health. A new study shows us why you may want to make dining with your family a standard practice.

Sitting down and eating together as a family regularly (at least three times a week) has recently been shown to decrease an entire families' risk of becoming obese by up to 12%. Not only is sharing meal time healthy for family bonding, and for a person’s emotional and mental well-being, but it also appears to promote healthy eating and weight loss. This discovery couldn't come at a more crucial time for North America, as it has recently been reported that obesity among young children has nearly tripled over the last three decades.

Nutrition experts are now stressing the theory that the role of family is crucial in providing children with appropriate health information and nutrition guidelines. Healthy interaction with your children during mealtimes and educating them about proper food intake is especially important for guiding them in the right nutritional direction. Through participating in family meal times regularly (approximately three times/week), children and adults in this study were 20% less likely to indulge in junk food on a regular basis, while an additional 35% were at a reduced risk of developing an eating disorder.  Impressively, 24% of children in this study were more than likely to adopt a lifelong healthy lifestyle regime due to family eating rituals alone. Since childhood obesity is such a complex issue, however, engaging in regular family mealtimes is only one of many theories suggested by scientists to help decrease the risk of childhood obesity.

Both children and parents can benefit from adopting a healthier eating plan and taking part in activities together - which can include scheduling family meals during the week. If you're one of the thousands of Canadians currently struggling with obesity and have considered surgical measures as a viable option for losing weight; consider weight loss surgery with the OMNI LapBand system. The professional medical staff at Omni Surgery Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan offers safe stomach banding procedures using the OMNI LapBand system. To learn more about stomach banding and weight reduction surgery, visit them online at http://omnilapband.ca.