NEW research from Oxford University reveals that the more often people eat with others, the more likely they are to feel happy with their lives.

Using data from a national survey by The Big Lunch, the researchers looked at the link between social eating and an individual's happiness, the number of friends they have, connection to their community and overall satisfaction with life.

Professor Robin Dunbar at the university's experimental psychology department said: "This study suggests that social eating has an important role in the facilitation of social bonding, and that communal eating may have even evolved as a mechanism for humans to do just that.

"We know from previous studies that social networks are important in combatting mental and physical illness.

"A significant proportion of respondents felt that having a meal together was an important way of making or reinforcing these social networks.

"In these increasingly fraught times, when community cohesion is ever more important, making time for and joining in communal meals is perhaps the single most important thing we can do – both for our own health and wellbeing and for that of the wider community.”

Researchers found that people who eat socially are more likely to feel better about themselves and have a wider social network capable of providing social and emotional support.

A third of weekday evening meals are eaten in isolation, and the average adult eats 10 meals out of 21 alone every week.

Busy lives and hectic work schedules are the main causes of this solitary dining trend.

More than two thirds (69 per cent) of those questioned had never shared a meal with any of their neighbours, 37 per cent had never eaten with a community group, while a fifth of people said it had been over six months since they had shared a meal with their parents.

The study also revealed that, although 57 per cent regularly eat an evening meal with other people during the week, nearly a fifth said this was a rare occurrence. 

Those over the age of 55 are most likely to eat alone - one in four in this age group said an evening meal with others wasn’t a usual occurrence.