Some of my best memories growing up are from sitting around the dinner table. It was the one time in our crazy schedules that we all sat down, slowed down and caught up.

But it seems the family dinner has gone the way of washing dishes by hand.

It just doesn’t happen anymore, families don’t sit down for that time. Kids will go to their bedrooms with their plates while mom and dad sit in front of the TV.

The conversation has stopped and the sharing of nutritious meals is rare. Take out menus—a different one for each member of the family has become common. I think the trend needs to be reversed, we need to go back to the days of eating together, sharing our days and sharing our food.

And I’m not the only one. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have recently finished a study in which they found that adolescents who eat "regular family meals" had more healthful diets, meaning they consumed more vegetables, calcium-rich food, dietary fibre and essential nutrients.

The study looked at the eating habits of 677 youths were during their pre- and early teen years and again five years later. The results were published in the March/April issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour.

According to researcher and dietician Teri L. Burgess-Champoux of the university's school of public health, the analysis, along with similar findings from a longitudinal analysis of older adolescents transitioning to young adulthood, strongly suggest that regular family meals have long-term nutritional benefits. "The importance of incorporating shared mealtime experiences on a consistent basis during this key developmental period should be emphasized to parents, health-care providers and educators."

Peter McNelly considers a sit-down dinner with his wife the most important part of his day. McNelly is married to Karen Gelbart, the founder of the Food Network in Canada, and the two both have extremely busy lives in the media but McNelly considers dinner together to be “a great ritual.” “People can bring the stories of the day together and connect over food.”

McNelly and Gelbart were recently in Istanbul and McNelly notes that one of the nicest things they saw was the large families eating together in restaurants. “These families would be together for two hours enjoying each other’s company and food. It was just great.”

Now I know that not all families can sit down and eat together for two hours, some can barely do it once a week. But I think the University of Minnesota is onto something.

Since leaving home to come to University I find myself eating dinner by myself more and more. It’s lonely, even with the TV on. Experts have found that when you eat by yourself you usually eat faster and more, especially if you have a distraction like the TV or the web. According to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, households that keep the television turned on during mealtimes can expect to see a negative impact on the health of the entire family. When the TV is on, you can easily tune out your internal signals of hunger, and you may end up eating far more than you wanted or needed. TV dining also interferes with effective communication between kids and parents, which is one of the greatest benefits of family meals.

I’m making it a point of changing my eating habits, turning off the TV or computer and getting back to enjoying food with my current family, my roommates.