MEALS at the family dinner table could help prevent teenage girls from developing eating disorders.

Research is showing that girls who regularly share meals with the family are much less likely to adopt extreme weight control behaviour such as vomiting, binge eating or using laxatives or diet pills.

A study of more than 2500 US high school students found that girls who ate five or more family meals a week had a much healthier relationship with food in later life.

The research, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, polled students aged 13 to 17 in 1999 who were followed up five years later.

Regular family meals were found to have a protective affect regardless of the girls' age, weight, socio-economic status, dieting habits or relationship with their family.

Experts say doctors should encourage families to have dinner at the table instead of in front of the television, to protect against serious eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.