ALBANY, N.Y., April 6 (UPI) -- Low-income New York families with pre-school children eat better eating as a family, but positive effects may be undone by watching TV while eating.
Researchers at the New York state department of health surveyed more than 1,300 parents of children participating in New York's Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children on eating habits.
"Each night the family ate dinner together was positively associated with serving fruits or vegetables -- (but) serving fruits or vegetables decreased with each night the television was on during dinner," the authors write in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
The study also found:
-- Hispanic and black parents report having the TV on during dinner more often than white parents.
-- Hispanics and whites ate dinner together more often than black families.
-- Families in which the parent had less than a high school education tended to have the TV on more often.
