Welcome to a post about breakfast sponsored by Nutella. A couple of months ago, I did some corporate work with Nutella to help promote some research they’d done into the relationship between breakfast and families.
It seems that less of us are having breakfast together and that’s a bad thing. I’m not sure what breakfast is like in your house but in mine it’s fairly nuts and certainly not a time to sit down and chat. If we can make it through the morning without shouting or tears, I high-five myself. Low expectations etc. But on weekends, I make more of an effort. At least on Sundays when there’s no sport. One out of seven ain’t bad. Did I mention low expectations?
For more information on the breakfast research and what it might mean for you, sponsored post guru Tammy writes:
But whilst much research has been done on the negative effects of ‘wagging’ breakfast, Nutella has worked together with family psychologist Dr John Irvine to look into the causes and suggest ways that families can create time to have breakfast together.
Dr John Irvine, child psychologist, commented: “Studies indicate that ‘table talk’ is one of the most important places and periods for family communication. Even if families don’t get time during the week to get the day off to a less than frantic start, we should use breakfast at weekends to ensure the kids get into a good breakfast routine and we take the time to converse as a family”.
- 30% of mums claim that eating breakfast as a family is not important
- Half of those questioned (54%) claim that a family breakfast is simply impractical in today’s fast paced world
- Just 3% of mums chose breakfast as the most important time of the day to spend important family time together, well behind dinner, which 57% of mums opted for as the key family occasion
Nutella is using the research to raise awareness of the importance of spending time together as a family either during the week or otherwise on the weekends, not just for the nutritional benefits that breakfast provides but also for the emotional health of the family.
Dr John Irvine continued: “60% of the families I see with behaviour problems have no sit down and talk time, and then parents wonder why those same kids, when they grow into teenagers, don’t communicate with them. Today’s families are fast families but the family that eats together stays together. Even with our fast paced lifestyles, it’s still possible to make time for breakfast together as a family, especially on the weekends and this should be a time that we all look forward to.”
Breakfast has long been acknowledged as the most important meal nutritionally, but it’s time to embrace the fact that it can also be a great opportunity for families emotionally. As more and more parents work late, the opportunity to sit down and have dinner together becomes more rare. Maybe it’s time to think about breakfast – at least on weekends – as an alternative?
So what do you do at breakfast time in your home – and how important is breakfast time in your family?
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Top Comments
If having the word Nutella on the same page as an article about the need to focus on enjoying family time together and eating a healthy breakfast is telling people Nutella = Healthy Breakfast, there is something very wrong in our education system! Of course, that's what the brand is hoping to associate, but we're all too clever for that surely?
YUM! I love nutella.... Hot toast with melting butter and melting nutella..... Mmmmmmm!