Less families dining together

/ Korea Times file

Less and less families are gathering at the dining table to have meals, a recent survey shows.

Only 46.1 percent of some 7,000 people who were surveyed had breakfast with their family, according to public health statistics for 2013, compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

The percentage of people eating breakfast together has steadily declined since the survey was initiated in 2005, from 62.9 percent that year to 58.6 percent in 2008; 54.7 percent in 2010; 51.3 percent in 2012 and less than 50 percent last year. It is the first time the figure has dropped below the 50 percent threshold.

Family dinners have also been decreasing. The figure was 76 percent for 2005, 68.8 percent in 2008, 68 percent in 2010 and 65.1 percent in 2013. This means that one in three people aren’t having dinner together with their families.

As most family members are either at work or at school during lunch hours, the figure for families eating lunch together was 14.4 percent, the lowest among the three meals. This is also a decreased figure compared to 21.6 percent in 2005.

The survey also showed that families living in urban areas were less likely to dine together. The 2013 figures for city-dwelling families were 44.4 percent, 14.3 percent and 63.8 percent for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, whereas with the figures for families in rural areas were considerably higher at 55.1 percent, 23.5 percent and 67.1 percent.

“The survey didn't cover why families were unable to have meals together, but we see this as having happened as more family members are spending time outside and also because of the rising population of single-person households,” said Oh Kyung-won, director of the division of health & nutrition survey at CDC.

“Because family meals are more likely to have greater nutritional value, we plan on looking into the percentages of family meals along with nutritional conditions,” she said.