Prevalence of daily family meals among children and adolescents from 43 countries

Prevalence studies about family meals, including large and representative samples ofchildren and adolescents on this topic, are scarce. Therefore, the aim of this study wastwofold: first, to determine the prevalence of daily family meals in large andrepresentative samples of school‐going children and adolescents from 43 countries,and second, to identify the sex, age, socioeconomic status (SES), family structure,immigrant status and parental labour market status inequalities associated with thisprevalence. Using data from the 2017/2018 wave of the Health Behaviour in School‐aged Children study, a total of 179,991 participants from 43 countries were involved inthis cross‐sectional study. Family meals were assessed by the following question: ‘Howoften do you and your family usually have meals together?’. Participants had five differentresponse options: ‘every day’, ‘most days’, ‘about once a week’, ‘less often’, and ‘never’.The meta package was utilized for conducting a meta‐analysis of single proportions,specifically applying the metaprop function. The analysis involved pooling the data using arandom‐effects model and presenting the outcomes through a forest plot generated usingthe inverse variance method. Moreover, we applied generalized linear mixed models toexplore the relationships between the studied sociodemographic factors as fixed effects,country as a random effect and the status of daily family meals as an outcome. Overall,the prevalence of daily family meals was 49.12% (95% confidence interval [CI]:45.00–53.25). A greater probability of having daily family meals was identified for childrenaged 10–12 years (61.55%; 95% CI: 57.44%–65.49%), boys (61.55%, 95% CI:57.44%–65.49%), participants with high SES (64.66%, 95% CI: 60.65%–68.48%),participants with both parents at home (65.05%, 95% CI: 61.16%–68.74%) and thosewith both unemployed parents (61.55%, 95% CI: 57.44%–65.49%). In the present study,which included large representative samples of school‐going children and adolescentsfrom 43 countries, more than half of the participants did not have daily family meals.