Assessing Causality and Persistence in Associations between Family Dinners and Adolescent Well-Being

Kelly Musick, Cornell University
Ann Meier, University of Minnesota

Adolescents who share meals with their parents score better on a range of indicators tapping health and well-being. These associations are consistent and strong, and they have attracted much attention in media and policy circles. We address two questions yet unresolved in the growing literature on family meals: Are associations causal and do they persist over time? Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we examine associations between family dinners, mental health, and substance use. We rely on detailed measures of family relationships and activities to assess the extent to which family dinners proxy family organization. As a more stringent test of causality, we estimate first difference models, accounting for time-invariant unobserved factors that might jointly determine family dinners and adolescent well-being. In subsequent analyses, we will incorporate additional waves of data to examine persistence in the association between family meals and adolescent well-being into young adulthood.