Eat Healthy On The Cheap. Two Things You Must Do.

A new study has found that adults who don't flip on the TV during dinner and eat home-cooked meals are less likely to be obese.

The study revealed those never watching TV or videos had a significantly lower occurrence of obesity when compared to those who watched something during mealtimes on a regular basis. Most struggle with trying to lose weight, or have tried with little to no success. Studies show with behavior modifications, weight loss can become a reality.

The study appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

How often a family eats though didn't appear to be a major factor.

A report from Science Daily called "Cooking Family Meals, Skipping TV During Those Meals Linked To Lower Odds Of Obesity", reports potential benefits from turning off the boob tube while eating.

"How often you are eating family meals may not be the most important thing. It could be that what you are doing during these meals matters more," said lead author Rachel Tumin, survey and population health analyst manager at the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center.

"This highlights the importance of thinking critically about what is going on during those meals, and whether there might be opportunities to turn the TV off or do more of your own food preparation," said Tumin, who conducted the study as part of her PhD dissertation with senior author Sarah Anderson, associate professor of epidemiology in Ohio State's College of Public Health.

It suggests the frequency of meals has a lesser impact than the structure of the meals.

"Obesity was as common in adults who ate family meals one or two days a week as it was in those who ate family meals every day. Regardless of family meal frequency, obesity was less common when meals were eaten with the television off and when meals were cooked at home," she said.

Tumin and Anderson's analysis found the lowest odds of obesity for those adults who engaged in both healthy practices -- eating home-cooked food and doing it without a TV or video on -- every time they ate a family meal.

The data come from the 2012 Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey, a telephone survey of Ohioans. Included in the study were 12,842 survey participants who said that they ate at least one family meal in the week prior to their interview. Obesity was defined as a body mass index at or above 30, calculated from self-reported height and weight measures collected in the survey.

More than half of participants reported eating family meals on most days, 35 percent on some days and 13 percent on few days per week. One third of the study participants were obese. About a third watched TV or videos most of the time during family meals and 36 percent said they never did.

The results held up after the researchers took into account other differences in the study population, including employment status, whether they were married, race, education and age. Because it was based on a survey of current behavior and weight, the study does not offer evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between meal habits and weight.

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine concluded cooking at home is associated with a better diet quality. The study focused on the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) of people that ate out vs. those that ate home cooked meals.

Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With U.S. Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost

Conclusions

Home-cooked dinners were associated with greater dietary guideline compliance, without significant increase in food expenditures. By contrast, frequent eating out was associated with higher expenditures and lower compliance.

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