In his best-selling book on using mealtime to strengthen family bonds, Art Smith wrote that “getting back to the table allows us to love and nurture each other and renew connections to our families – however they may be configured in this diverse and ever-changing society” and that “such connections are crucial in a fast-paced world where we feel more disconnected every day.”

Smith’s book, “Back to the Table: The Reunion of Food and Family,” is part of a national epiphany, evidence that Americans are discovering that though meals on the go may seem to be an unwanted yet unavoidable consequence of their busy lives, the cost in loss of family unity and identity may far outweigh the convenience. The idea that family mealtime is as important for emotional, intellectual and spiritual nourishment as it is for the actual taking in of nutrients has been buoyed in national campaigns, like cable television retro linchpins TV Land and Nike at Nite’s “Family Table” series in which sitcom moms Clair Huxtable, Rosanne Conner and others offer tips on making mealtime a family affair. The campaign is backed by a wealth of national studies, including long-term research by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, which consistently found that the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, use illegal drugs, have sex at a young age, get involved in fights, be suspended from school or entertain thoughts of suicide. Another study, commissioned by the White House and the YMCA, found that one in four parents said their families eat together four or fewer times per week and one in 10 said they eat only one or no meals per week with their children.

However enticing the image of a family sitting around a table engaging in conversation-starters like “Who was the most interesting person you met today?” and “If I were a vegetable, I’d be a rutabaga because …” may be, re-creating that made-for-TVLand set for a real family takes discipline and planning, says sociologist Adrienne Ochs.

Through her consulting business, You Grow, Girl, Ochs works mostly with professional women who feel burdened by the pressures of work and family and want to regain a sense of balance. A wife and mother of three, Ochs is all too familiar with the consequences of a lack of family structure. Her parents divorced when she was young and her upbringing lacked the structure that makes families thrive, she said, “and when I became this wife and mother, I had to search for tools to make motherhood and wifery work.”

Now, she imparts some of the wisdom she gained through a deliberate, intentional search for structure in national speaking engagements and her character-based You Grow, Girl workshops, including a Jan. 26 event called “Hey, Mom, What’s for Dinner?” (for details, go to www.yougrowgirl.org).

“‘Hey, Mom, what’s for dinner?’ is something our family members will ask directly or indirectly at 6 o’clock,” Ochs said. And although which spouse is responsible for meal preparation and other aspects of creating family structure may differ from couple to couple, it generally falls on the mother to plan and prepare meals and “our job as women is to provide a healthy answer by planning and making good nutritional choices,” she said.

Ochs said though most families recognize the importance of family mealtime, some fail to plan properly for how they’ll accomplish it. “Rarely do mothers plan to go to a fast-food restaurant,” said Ochs, whose credentials include master’s degrees in both rural sociology and demography and a doctorate in agricultural and extension education and youth development. “It’s an impulse. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional fast food, but when we turn to it because we haven’t planned, that’s not good for the entire family.”

Planning should be done as far in advance as possible to eliminate last-minute trips to the grocery store or settling for unhealthy food choices from the deli counter or the drive-through window. “When you plan it, you can also set up the steps to get the meal accomplished,” she said, emphasizing that deciding what family member is responsible for what preparation is as important as formulating a well-balanced menu. “The goal is not to go into the 6 o’clock crisis – I call it the ‘arsenic hour.’ That’s when you get into unhealthy, expensive choices.”

That’s not to say every family meal should be a lavish made-from-scratch affair that takes hours to prepare. “Shortcuts are OK,” said Ochs. “The best invention, I think, is bagged greens like lettuce and spinach. There are a lot of prepackaged healthy alternatives in the supermarket.”

Preparing a healthy meal is only part of the battle, and families with teenage children who juggle sports or other after-school activities, jobs, busy social lives and family time may have trouble getting everyone to the table at the same time. “Maybe that family mealtime is in the morning,” Ochs said. “The important thing is to get together. It’s the time and the quality of the interaction and the quality of the food. You just have to be creative.”

The family meal, whether breakfast or dinner, should be a mix of predictability and surprise. Ochs advises busy mothers to post a menu so family members know what to expect and have something to look forward to, but also make it a special event. “You don’t need candles and linen,” she explained, “but the focus should be on the mealtime, with no distractions like television.”

Ochs also advises the women she works with to let themselves off the hook and delegate more of their responsibilities. “We sometimes feel like we’re responsible for more than we really are,” she said. “We don’t have to handle all these pieces;we just think we do. If you feel overwhelmed, that’s OK, but we need a strategy to work out of that overwhelming place.”

Too often, she said, women wait until they’re in a crisis before seeking help in finding a balance. “When women come to me for help, they’re ready for change,” she said. “A typical call would be from a woman who is working, doing her best, pulling a lot of extra hours, her home life is falling apart, her kids don’t obey or listen so she overcompensates, and her husband isn’t happy and she doesn’t know why.”