Families throughout the West Country are not sitting down and having home cooked meals together, new research has found.

This is the case for almost half of families in the region, despite 88 per cent of respondents saying that their kids would have better manners as a result of eating together.

A considerable amount (44 per cent) admitted to having TV dinners two or three times a week, while one in four said they do it more often than not, the research commissioned by Cornish Mutual found.

"Many more people remember their families eating together every day when they were a child, but it's no longer happening in the same way with their own families," commented Alan Goddard, managing director of the company.

Psychologist Professor Geoff Beattie recently said that eating as a family unit has a number of behavioural advantages for kids, such as encouraging them to eat more healthily.