MEDIA RELEASE
1 March 2008

Family First Launches Family Dinner Campaign

Family First NZ is launching a public awareness campaign encouraging families to eat dinner together on a regular basis. The campaign is timed to begin on the same weekend as Children’s Day.

The billboard, newspaper and email campaign features the slogan “What your kids really want for dinner… is you! - Good things happen at the table.”

“According to the 2007 UNICEF report ‘An Overview of Child Wellbeing’, New Zealand teenagers have one of the lowest rates in the OECD for eating the main meal of the day with their parents regularly,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Yet the research is clear. Young people who belong to families that eat together on a regular basis (5 times or more per week) are less likely to smoke, drink, or use illegal drugs (National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University); less likely to be overweight (Queensland University and University of Minnesota); less likely to develop eating disorders among girls (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine); less likely to be depressed, and more likely to be motivated at school and have better peer relationships (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre).” (further research on our website www.familyfirst.org.nz )

We hope that by highlighting simple techniques such as eating together as a family on a regular basis, families will be strengthened and young people will reap the benefits.”

“Rather than waiting to pick up the pieces at the ‘bottom of the cliff’, it makes much more sense to promote policy and strategies which strengthen families and the welfare of our young people,” says Mr McCoskrie.

“So make a date with your family for dinner tonight.”

ENDS

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