Allow me a Norman Rockwell moment.

I’m picturing my family sitting around the table at dinner. An array of steaming, made-from-scratch dishes with tantalizing aromas cover the table. Pleasant conversation is punctuated by enthusiastic bites. The vegetables are consumed with appreciation. Oh—and everyone uses napkins.

The unfortunate reality is that dinners in my household have as much in common with that scene as Norman Rockwell has with Tony Soprano. Far too often, work, school, sports, music lessons, play dates, and the rest of that mess we affectionately call “life” collide at dinner time, creating what can look like a smash-and-grab crime scene at a drive-through. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cleaned out the waste of meals eaten on-the-run from the back of the car, while I’m refilling Mom’s Taxi at the gas station. At the height of the chaos (affectionately termed “the school year”), family meals with all of us at the table are only a possibility on the weekends. And if it’s soccer season, condense “weekend” to “Sunday.” (See 8 tips for packing a healthy lunch.)

But really, does it matter? The kids are getting fed. Schedules are being met. And I haven’t gone insane—yet.

Apparently, it may matter. It seems that an ounce of prevention may prevent a pound or more—in the form of my kids’ chances of becoming overweight. In a study published online in June from The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that eating home-cooked dinners is negatively correlated with children being overweight. The researchers in Greece evaluated 1138 children ranging in age from about 10 to just under 14, putting them through a battery of tests and interviews, covering topics such as how often they ate every day, what they ate, and even what they were doing at the time. Based on the results, they created five different groups, ranging from children who didn’t eat at scheduled times but consumed more fast food, sweets, and sweetened beverages, to kids who regularly ate dinner that had been prepared at home.