Do you usually sit down at the dining table for mealtimes or do you prefer to enjoy your dinner on the couch, watching your favorite show? If you lean toward the latter, you're in good company because new research finds that watching TV during dinner is the norm for nearly two-thirds of the country.
America’s dining habits are being revealed in a new YouGov survey. It asks 11-hundred U.S. adults across the country about which meal - breakfast, lunch, or dinner - they like most, what time they typically eat, who they eat with, and what they’re doing while they chow down.
According to the survey:
- Dinner is the most popular meal, with half of respondents saying it’s their favorite. Breakfast comes in second with 23%, followed by lunch with 19%.
- Dinner is also the meal Americans are most likely to always eat, with 56% always eating dinner, compared to 29% who always eat lunch and 31% who always eat breakfast.
- When it comes to making the meal, 57% say they make breakfast for themselves, while 48% make their own lunch and 53% prepare dinner themselves.
- But women (62%) are more likely than men (42%) to be the one cooking dinner.
- Lunch is the meal Americans are most likely to get from a restaurant or delivery service.
- About half (53%) tend to eat breakfast alone and about the same number (52%) typically eat lunch alone, but dinner is a different story.
- A third (33%) eat dinner alone, but most (55%) eat it with family.
- Breakfast and lunch take people less than 20 minutes to eat, and they spend the longest amount of time eating dinner, between 21 and 30 minutes, on average.
- The most common time to eat dinner is 7 p.m., with 65% of Americans having dinner at that time or earlier.
- During dinner, 63% watch TV, 41% talk to the people they’re with and 28% look at their phones.
- Overall, people’s favorite part of food prep is cooking the meal and the part they like least is cleaning up after the meal.
Source: YouGov