Does Eating Together Make You Happier? What Dunbar's Survey of 2,000 Adults Found

Dear friend,

I owe you a dinner, and I would like to stop saying so and put it in the calendar.

Does eating together make you happier?

Probably somewhat, and the best evidence is a survey. Robin Dunbar of Oxford published “Breaking Bread: the Functions of Social Eating” in Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology (2017). It rests on a one-week survey in April 2016 of 2,000 UK adults, run with the Big Lunch project. People who ate socially more often reported greater happiness and life satisfaction, more trust in others and more friends they could rely on. Those who mostly ate alone had as few as half the average support circle of 4.63 people.

The limit is the design. It is correlational, the effects were modest, and the connection may run both ways, since sociable people eat with others more often. Dunbar’s path analysis leaned toward the meals producing the bond, but he says experiments would be needed to confirm it.

What made a meal feel close?

For recalled evening meals, laughter and reminiscing predicted closeness best, then the number of diners, then alcohol. Evening meals beat lunches. Nearly 70% of respondents had never eaten with a neighbour.

What I’m proposing

One table, the same slot each month, a handful of people, no occasion needed. A plan with a date survives; “let’s catch up soon” does not. If supper runs late, an earlier start also suits your body clock.

Friendships like this matter beyond mood: in the 1979 Alameda County data, the most isolated adults had far higher death risk. And a table is an easy place to laugh together.

I’m free the first Thursday of next month. Send me yours.