Perceiving weight incorrectly has been an emerging health concern (Kaltiala-Heino et al., 2003). Family meal consumption may increase adolescents normal weight perception (Mikkilä et al., 2003), and therefore family meal can aid adolescents to identify their weight versus the peers. An awareness of fundamental benefits on normal weight perception may encourage healthy mealtime in families.

The aim of this cross-sectional research was to see if there exists an association between the family meal consumption and the perceived under - or overweightness among 14- to 16-year-old Finnish adolescents, separately for boys and girls. Mikkilä´s et al. (2003) cross-sectional research associated family meals with normal weight perception. The current research was conducted to compare present circumstances with Mikkilä’s (2003) results and also to examine the association between communication satisfaction with parents, family meals and weight perception.

This Master’s thesis investigates data from the national School Health Promotion study 2013 (n=99 478) (National Institute for Health and Welfare, 2014). The chosen study population consist of 8th and 9th graders. The cleaned data in logistic regression analysis included 71 288 study-subjects.

Firstly, the association between the family meals and weight perception consumption was tested by cross-tabulations and the statistical analyses were carried out by Chi-Square test. Family meal was statistically significantly associated with lower odds of perceived under - or overweightness. Secondly, the independent association between weight perception and other variables were examined by logistic regression. This analysis was adjusted for socioeconomic and life-style variables, as well as communication satisfaction with parents. Not a proper family meal was associated with an under- or overweightness perception of body weight also in the multivariate models. This study showed a stronger association between the communication satisfaction with parents and the normal weight perception than the association of the family meal to the normal weight perception.