Table 2.

Additional Quotes Regarding Similarities and Differences in Mealtime Characteristics Between Households Having Frequent or Infrequent Family Meals^*

Similarities in Mealtime Characteristics Between Households that have Frequent or Infrequent Family Meals
Themes Occurring in Both Households Having Frequent and Infrequent Family Meals:	Example Quotes:
Picky eating	Picky eating…is something that happens almost each meal, with at least one person in the family…it can be really frustrating for the person who cooked the meal (frequent household, African American, female, 42 yrs.)
	There is always someone who is picky and doesn’t want to eat what is served (infrequent household, Hispanic, female, 31 years)
Involving Family Members in Meal Preparation	I prepare most of the food but the kids help. My daughter, yeah, my daughter, she likes to help, she likes to help when I’m cooking. She likes to season the meat or get the plates down, so yeah she does a lot of help (infrequent household, African American, female, 29 yrs.)
	Yeah, my son chops some vegetables, he likes to grate the cheese, he helps with the menu planning, stirs things as things need to be stirred. Stove is still a little too high so he doesn’t really do a whole lot of that sort of thing yet. He clears his dishes. One of these days he’s going to start doing the dishwasher…I’m looking forward to that (frequent household, White, male, 33 yrs.)
Differences in Mealtime Characteristics Between Households that have Frequent or Infrequent Family Meals
Themes Occurring in Households Having Frequent Family Meals:	Example Quotes:
Importance of Family Meals	Family meals are really important to our family. I don’t know for other families but in our family, like we spend all, most of our day apart until pretty much dinner time and a lot of the time I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know what’s going on with Jules until she gets home. I don’t know what’s going on with Albert until he gets home. So when we do sit down for dinner, that is a time for us to find out how everybody’s day went, good or bad (frequent household, African American, male, 30 yrs.)
	I think they do matter, just because I am a single parent myself and I do have a daughter and I do tend to worry that she’s going to you know feel like she’s, not getting the proper attention at home because she doesn’t have the second parent…whether she eats with me, or me and grandmother or whoever, I feel like at family meals we get the opportunity to show our child that there is love in this home, you know, regardless, so it’s very important…for all children, but especially for girls, because I was a young girl without a father (frequent household, African American, female, 27 yrs.)
	I believe family meals matter so much because you can get that one-on-one with your child, you know even if there’s mom, dad, cousins, brothers—whoever’s at the table…that’s the time where they should feel that they can say whatever they want and not be judged, because a lot of kids are afraid of being judged, you know. This is your family. This is your dinner table. This is your food. This is your house. You should be able to say whatever you feel, you know, whatever’s bothering you, whatever, so I think that that, you know, having that moment is very important to every child (frequent household, White, female, 25 yrs.)
Flexibility in the Definition of Family Meals
Breakfast, lunch or dinner counts	Anytime where we’re sitting all around the table to me is considered a family meal—it may be breakfast, lunch, or dinner as long as we’re all around the table, to me that counts…anytime we prepare anything together and sit down (frequent household, White, female, 21 yrs.)
	I can’t say necessarily they [breakfast, lunch, dinner] differ because it doesn’t matter really what kind of food you’re eating, you know, it’s really about the togetherness. We’ll eat breakfast for dinner. My kids love to have bacon and pancakes for dinner. You know, so, I mean, the type of food or time of day doesn’t really specify the meal, you know, but I think it just comes down to, you know, us being together and sitting at the table together (frequent household, Hispanic, female, 30 yrs.)
Attendance at meal	We are all sitting at the table or some of us…me and Bella are sitting at the table eating together or all of us eating together. Sometimes Tamika and I just eat together when Bella’s at school (frequent household, African American, female, 43 yrs.)
	During the weekday, the boys eat breakfast while I get their lunches ready and their backpacks so in a way it’s a family meal because they’re eating while I’m next to them getting stuff ready and packing their backpack or we’re studying homework or doing a practice spelling test. So that’s technically to me a family meal, even if one of the parents isn’t eating (frequent household, African American, female. 35 yrs.)
Place of meal	More often than not, our top goal is to all sit down at the table, all in the dining room. But a lot of times, even if we go out to eat it counts…as long as we are talking and connecting (frequent household, White, female, 42 yrs.)
Amount of time for meal	Even if we just spend 10 minutes together, you know, because we’re all so busy, I count that as a family meal (frequent household, African American, male, 44 yrs.)
Rules at Family Meals
Electronics	I don’t give kids electronic devices…I mean, that’s foolishness...especially during meals (frequent household, African American, female, 40 yrs.)
Manners/Responsibilities	They need to help prepare the food, set the table, eat the meal and clean up. These are skills they’re going to need to know when they grow up, and move out (frequent household, White, male, 36 yrs.)
No Pressure-to-eat Parent Feeding Practices	We’re not the clean your plate kind of people. If you’re absolutely not hungry, I never force my kids to eat, but if they’re like “Oh, I don’t know if I really like this” then you know, we’ll make a smaller portion and say “You’ll at least have to try because you don’t know if you don’t like it until you try it.” We stay pretty positive (frequent household, White, female, 26 yrs.)
	And we don’t really have a rule that she needs to finish everything, but she knows that she can’t just have anything else in the kitchen (frequent household, Hispanic, female, 22 yrs.)
Themes Occurring in Households with Infrequent Family Meals:	Example Quotes:
Difficult Mealtime Behaviors
Fighting	Fighting…that is one of the biggest issues during family meals (infrequent household, White, male, 25 yrs.)
Child playing when they should be eating	They’ll (children) get distracted and just play with their toys or tease each other and then I have to get down on them to focus and eat their dinner (infrequent household, African American, female, 29 yrs.)
Family Meals are Dinner Only	Dinner’s the only time we basically have the family meal, so it’s, yeah, end of the day when everybody can come together…usually because mornings is kind of up in the air, everybody is on their own little routine in the mornings and on the weekend…so nobody eat at the same time in the mornings (infrequent household, African American, female, 44 yrs.)
	Just mainly dinner, the only time we might have a family meal because everybody has gone to school or off to you know work and things like that. Other than the weekend—well, no, probably not the weekend either…just dinner (infrequent household, Hispanic, female, 36 yrs.)
Pressure-to-eat Parent Feeding Practices	You have to at least try what is on your plate…you’re not leaving until you have tried it (infrequent household, African American, female, 41 yrs.)
	Everyone at the table has to eat what I prepare, I spent my time doing it, so they have to eat it (infrequent household, White, female, 39 yrs.)

^*All names have been changed to protect confidentiality.