Family meals in Santiago de Chile: An analysis of the role of family, gender and social class in commensality.

Family meals are part of the social reproduction process of "making a family", but few studies have been performed outside Europe or North America and few of them have considered different family arrangements and cultural scenarios. This study aimed to examine how socio-demographic characteristics influence the probability of eating with family members only, drawing on the case of Santiago, Chile. In this study we analyze the commensal practices of 625 adults living in Santiago, and explore how these practices are influenced by family structure and social background. Respondents kept a seven-days food journal recording what they ate, when, where and with whom, resulting in 14,085 recorded food events (average 3.2 foods per day per person). Logistic regressions were estimated predicting the probability of eating with family members. The results showed that a high percentage of food events, namely, 63% of them, took place with family members only. Moreover, the probability of eating with family members differed between meals when considering different socio-demographics characteristics: working status and sex were more significant for breakfasts and lunches, while social class and the presence of children only gained importance for lunches and evening meals. On the other hand, the existence of a partner of the head of household was the most significant variable in predicting family meals, which can be associated with the feeling of "making a family" that family meals provide. Finally, unlike international evidence, in Santiago the working class is more likely to eat with family members only, compared to the service class. These findings reveal the importance of studying family commensality in different cultural scenarios, where other contextual or structural mechanisms could be operating when family meals take place.