Sharing Meals Linked To Happiness and Health

The 2025 World Happiness Report highlights the central role of social connections in human health, happiness and prosperity. Decades of research shows that people with strong social ties tend to be happier, less stressed, more satisfied with life, less prone to depression and more engaged in their communities. These connections also correlate with better physical health, greater creativity and cooperation, higher income and longer lives. By contrast, social isolation and loneliness are linked with a host of negative outcomes, including poorer health, shorter life expectancy, lower subjective wellbeing and higher rates of criminality. One widely cited meta‑analysis even estimated that the negative health effects of loneliness are roughly equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In addition, more socially connected societies tend to display higher levels of trust, civic engagement and compassion, contributing to broader societal wellbeing.

Building on this foundation, the 2025 report presents new evidence on sharing meals as a measurable and cross‑culturally comparable indicator of social connection and wellbeing. Using novel data from the Gallup World Poll for 142 countries and territories collected in 2022 and 2023, researchers found persistent global differences in how often people eat with others. While some populations (especially Latin America and the Caribbean) share almost all of their meals with others, people in other regions (like South Asia) eat most meals alone. These patterns are not fully explained by economic or demographic factors alone, suggesting that cultural and social practices strongly shape mealtime habits.

Importantly, sharing meals is strongly predictive of subjective wellbeing, on par with traditional indicators such as income and unemployment. Across ages, genders, countries, cultures and regions, individuals who share more meals with others report higher life satisfaction and positive affect along with lower negative affect. This relationship holds at both the individual and societal level, with countries where people share more meals also displaying higher social support and positive reciprocity and lower loneliness. At the same time, dining alone is associated with lower wellbeing.

In the United States, longitudinal data from the American Time Use Survey reveal that solo dining has increased sharply over the past two decades. In 2023 roughly one in four Americans reported eating all of their meals alone on the previous day, a rise of 53 percent since 2003. This trend is especially pronounced among younger people and may reflect broader shifts in social and community engagement.

While the causal direction between meal sharing and wellbeing remains an open question, the report suggests that shared meals can serve as a valuable proxy for social connection, helping researchers and policymakers understand and measure relational wellbeing across cultures and over time. It also points to promising avenues for future research into how everyday social rituals like eating together contribute to individual and societal happiness.