The act of eating alone or with others is, to this day, an aspect that involves many meanings. Some of these varied aspects relate to the quality and quantity of what we eat. How does the presence of others at mealtime influence what we choose to eat, the quality of our food, and the amount we consume?
To begin with, there is a certain social regulation of meal times. For example, in offices, there are designated meal hours when one is expected to eat, and it is rare for someone to get up to eat at three in the morning, although modern times increasingly push us toward disorder in meal schedules and the time we dedicate to eating.
In many cultures, including Mexican culture, until quite recently, those who ate alone were almost considered sad or lonely individuals, and when this happened in public, it was assumed, for example, that the person was a stranger, forced not to share the table. Nowadays, this aspect is fading, and it is increasingly common to find people eating in cubicles in front of their monitors, in their cars, or while walking. Interested in these and other changes in modern eating habits, several scientists have set out to study the effects on the quality of what we eat, whether alone or accompanied. In a systematic review of 41 studies, it was found that people who eat most of their meals alone tend to consume food of lower nutritional quality. This can be explained, in part, by a lack of motivation to carry out daily tasks such as choosing and preparing food, compared to when one cohabits with someone else or eats in a group or as a couple.
On the other hand, it is well known that when we attend a family meal, we often indulge and end up eating more than we would otherwise; this effect is called social facilitation. Conversely, if we are at a business lunch, we rarely eat much more than our table companions—lest we appear greedy—and almost everyone ends up eating the same amount of food; this effect is called social inhibition. Why is it useful to know this? It has been observed that obese individuals who eat with people making healthy food choices, over a long period, eventually imitate some choices and even reduce their portion sizes. The same effect is seen in younger school children who, by imitating their older peers, eat vegetables they had never tried before.
The importance of all this evidence, which is still developing worldwide, is that to implement successful actions in public health and nutrition with long-term impact, the dynamic of simply informing and overwhelming citizens with information is outdated, as is its equally harmful counterpart of an all-protective State making decisions for citizens. We must look critically but with an open mind at the research evidence that tells us how we are and how we behave, in order to implement measures with a more pragmatic than dogmatic approach. Undoubtedly, group meals could be an entry point for promoting nutritional well-being.
Originally published in El Economista
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.