yes he associates you with safety and security.  Think of it in human terms
do you really like to eat alone or do you want company.  He wants company
and you obey his wishes  welcome to slavehood

do you have another cat or pet  or is the house very active in the day time
in that area

if this is a bother you may need to move his dish to a quieter part of the
house but not near the cat box

Yep.  It's called social eating.  Many cats do not like to eat alone.  Our
two don't much care for each other, but do manage to show up at the food
bowl at pretty much the same time.  Plenty of only cats want company when
they eat.

Jo

Oscar doesn't insist that I hang around, but I've noticed that if I'm
eating a meal, she's pretty likely to eat at the same time.

Smudge does this. She's the first cat I ever knew who did this, and
I found it strange but adorable. My other two do not require company
when eating! :)

Actually, even Smudge doesn't need company when eating wet food,
just the dry. I figure that she finds dry food a bit boring and wants
encouragement to keep eating it, or maybe she wants entertainment to
ease the tedium. :)

Joyce

He just wants to make sure you're up and functioning. ;)  He may not
really want food, he wants you. As far as he's concerned, it's
morning, and you should be up. ;)
For years, my tiny Mimi would think of all kinds of diabolical ways to
get me out of bed, then not necessarily eat right way, just run around
the house.  Cats like a routine, and contrary to myth, many of them
like company, and do things together.  My cats don't even like each
other, but they tend to work "as a team."  They don't get me up in the
morning, but they seem to have pretty strong ideas about when I go to
bed at night.  They think 11:00 PM is the right time, and start trying
to herd me into bed  around 11:30 if I'm staying up.

Theresa
Stinky Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/album/125591586JWEFwh
My Blog: http://www.humanitas.blogspot.com

Make Levees, Not War

My cat likes me to take him down, from the second storey to the basement, so
that he can have company while he uses the litter box at 3 AM.  Now that's
special ;-)  He eats happily by himself though - he has competition with his
buddy so that probably keeps it all moving along.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

So long as there's food there, mine are expected to help
themselves without human encouragment!  If they don't like
what they're fed, they've et (until the next meal).  If they
just want company, they're welcome to curl up next to me
until I'm ready to get up.

My parents had a cat for 15 years who showed this behavior.  I have
heard it described as "social eating".

Smokey likes to be petted while she eats. The more you pet the more she
purrs and the faster she eats. And her eating is pretty impressive without
the petting.