Share meal time with others associated with better health

People who share more meal times with others are more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction and well-being, a study of the World Happiness Report led by UCL scholars.

In Chapter 3 of the report, sharing meals with others, UCL, Oxford, Harvard and Gallup researchers found that meal sharing is comparable to income and employment status as self-reported welfare indicators. These findings are found across all ages, genders, countries, cultures and regions.

Overall, the researchers found that countries where people share meals often report higher life satisfaction. Those who always share lunch and dinner reported on average extra points of their life assessment from 0 (worst life) to 10 (best life) compared to those who dined alone, and the researchers say that is a big gap. By contrast, if British residents report an additional life assessment point, the UK will be the second happy country in the world (currently Denmark, second only to Finland). This pattern is also the case when looking at people in the same country and after considering age, income or living arrangements.

Researchers say someone shares meals as frequently as the income band has in life satisfaction and positive emotions and can reveal more about their health than knowing whether they are unemployed.

“This is the first time that data on meal sharing is collected and analyzed globally. We already know how important social relationships are to health, but we are surprised by the strength to share with meal fans who are positively assessed and emotionally.”

The team used data from the Gallup World Poll, which asked about the well-being of 150,000 respondents and how often they shared meals with people they knew last week. Data were collected from 142 countries in 2022 and 2023.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean reported sharing the most meals in a week of seven days, sharing nearly two-thirds of lunch and dinner (nine meals). Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand ranked second, sharing an average of eight meals per week. By contrast, countries in South Asia reported sharing less than four lunches and dinners in a week, while those in East Asia shared nearly six in a week. People in the UK share lunch and dinner on average 7.5 times a week, with an average of 4.2 and 3.3 lunches.

The authors use the United States as a case study to study the latest evolution of shared meals. To this end, they used data from the US Time Use Survey and analyzed the trend of eating alone in the US from 2003 to 2023. People in the United States are now more likely to dine alone than they were 20 years ago, and researchers say it is driven by young people and share fewer meals with friends and family.

The author speculates that this may be related to changes in social structure over time and the overall decline in social capital – the cohesion of communities and the long-term trends in connection with other people who constitute a normal society.

The researchers noted in particular that Americans alone had increased, with 26% of American adults reporting eating alone the day before, an increase of more than 50% since 2003. Adults over the age of 65 are more likely to eat on their own, although since 2018, people who eat alone have a diet rate of under 35 eating habits. Researchers speculate that starting in early 2020, the recent acceleration may be attributed to forced changes in social behavior after the pandemic.

Dr. Prati added: “We believe that these findings have useful policy implications and emphasize that the number of shared meals is a promising yet studied comparative index of a promising social study.”

The Center for Welfare Research at Oxford has collaborated with Gallup, the United Nations Network on Sustainable Development Solutions and an independent editorial board to publish the World Happiness Report.