For the majority of American families, homemade meals are a thing of the past. The reasons are multiple: Too inconvenient, too time consuming, too challenging, too expensive.

Nutrition experts have long identified the lack of home cooking as one of the factors contributing to the ongoing obesity crisis, including childhood obesity. There is also general agreement that this is not an easy problem so solve. Here are a few obstacles that keep people from returning to the kitchen:

The traditional household where one spouse – usually the wife – stayed at home is no longer feasible or even desirable for most families. Women commonly have their own careers and bring in badly needed second incomes. Long work hours, commutes, school and afternoon activities make it harder if not impossible to set meal times that fit in everybody’s schedule. Picking up something on the way home that is (almost) ready to eat seems the only reasonable option on most days.

“People really are stressed out with all that they have to do, and they don’t want to cook. It’s one of the few things that even less well-off people have: They don’t have to cook,” said Julie Guthman, professor of community studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Time, or the lack of it, is certainly a factor. However, it is also true that even people who claim to be way too busy to think of cooking a meal once in a while do still have enough time to watch TV – at least 1½ hours every night on average. And while cooking shows like “Rachael Ray” and “Iron Chef” are highly popular, they don’t seem to have much effect on viewers in terms of motivation to take up the task themselves.

“The core problem is that cooking is defined as work,” wrote Mark Bittman in a recent op-ed article in the New York Times (Sept. 25, 2011), titled “Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?”

Bittman disputes the widely accepted argument that fast food is so popular because it’s the cheapest kind of food available.

“This is just plain wrong,” he wrote, “it isn’t cheaper to eat highly processed food.”

For example, a meal at McDonald’s for a family of four, consisting of two “Big Macs”®, one cheeseburger, one 6-piece “Chicken McNuggets”®, two medium fries, two small fries, two medium sodas and two small sodas, comes to a total of almost $28. For this amount, and actually much less, a home-cooked meal could include a whole chicken, potatoes, green vegetables and a simple salad on the side.

So, it’s not so much the money but the convenience, ubiquity and the habit-forming appeal that really helped processed foods to drown out all other alternatives. Now there are about five fast-food restaurants for every supermarket in the U.S., according to Bittman.

“Our addiction to processed food is the result of decades of vision and hard work by the industry,” said David A. Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and author of “The End of Overeating.” “Companies strove to create food that was energy-dense, highly stimulating, and went down easy. They put it on every street corner and made it mobile, and they made it socially acceptable to eat anytime and anyplace. They created a food carnival, and that’s where we live. And if you’re used to self-stimulation every 15 minutes, well, you can’t run into the kitchen to satisfy that urge,” he was quoted saying in the Bittman article.

Pointing fingers only at food manufacturers and restaurant chains won’t bring about the necessary changes that will make Americans (and people around the world for that matter) reconsider their eating habits.

“Real cultural changes are needed to turn this around,” wrote Bittman. “The smart campaign is not to get McDonald’s to serve better food but to get people to see cooking as a joy rather than a burden, or at least as part of a normal life.”

‘Kitchen mojo’

So, what can you do to get your groove back as a hobby chef or discover your talent for the first time?

Dor starters, you need to “turn on your kitchen mojo,” according to Keri Heron, a Dubai-based journalist and photographer of the food blog “chefandsteward.com.” She advises to take a fun approach that avoids a sense of drudgery right from the beginning.

Before you put on the apron and heat up the oven, pick your favorite music and set the right mood. Then, if you are so inclined, pour yourself a glass of wine or another favorite drink to stimulate your taste buds and get those gastric juices flowing. Don’t be shy: Dance and sing along with the music while you cut, slice and dice your ingredients. Think of your cooking not as a chore but an act of love for your family and friends who will enjoy the fruits of your labor and hopefully express their appreciation.

If you are a little rusty or have yet to gain more experience in the kitchen, buy an easy-to-follow cookbook that fits both your abilities and amenities. Don’t be intimidated or get discouraged when things don’t work out right away. One of the greatest chefs of our time, Thomas Keller (owner of “The French Laundry” in Napa Valley and “Per Se” in New York City), named the willingness to repeat and refine his recipes over and over again as the single most important element of his success.

Cooking is not an exact science, so allow yourself to be led by your imagination and curiosity, Heron recommends. There should be genuine joy and playfulness in the kitchen. Only then it will be a place you want to return to night after night (well, almost).

Timi Gustafson R.D. is a clinical dietitian and author of the book “The Healthy Diner – How to Eat Right and Still Have Fun”®, which is available on her blog, “Food and Health with Timi Gustafson R.D.” (www.timigustafson.com), and at amazon.com. You can follow Timi on Twitter (twitter.com/TimiGustafsonRD) and on Facebook.