Another excerpt from "Animal Vegetable Miracle," Barbara Kingsolver's 2007 book.

If I were to define my style of feeding my family, on a permanent basis, by the dictum, "Get it over with, quick," something cherished in our family life would collapse. And I'm not just talking waistlines, though we'd miss those. I'm discussing dinnertime, the cornerstone of our family's mental health. If I had to quantify it, I'd say 75 percent of my crucial parenting effort has taken place during or surrounding the time our family convenes for our evening meal. I'm sure I'm not the only parent to think so. A survey of national Merit scholars — exceptionally successful eighteen-year-olds crossing all lines of ethnicity, gender, geography, and class — turned up a common thread in their lives: the habit of sitting down to a family dinner table. It's not just the food making them brilliant. It's probably the parents, — their care, priorities and culture of support. [pp 125-126]

People often ask me, misguidedly, what's the one thing that's going to reverse the obesity trend, I first reply that there is no one thing. Obesity arises from such a terrible tangle of forces that no single change is going to have an effect. But I am persuaded that family dinner would be a huge influence in so many positive directions.

For now, at our house, we've instituted Friday Night Dinner, for which we don't go out, we don't sit in front of the TV, and we don't allow anything that would take away from direct communication among all those at the table. We welcome guests anytime, and in the last month or so, we've begun including Joseph, who'll turn 2 this month, even though he doesn't often carry his conversational weight just yet.

Those of you who've read "Fat Boy Thin Man" know that we observed family-dinner rules in my house growing up. They brought many of the happiest memories in a not always serene or united house. Such family habits were pretty common then, and are far less usual now. I don't think it's coincidence.