Final 500 words.
In some households mealtimes take priorities over all daily activities. Some households do it for the many benefits including having a healthy family. Reasons such as these are more specific to countries like the UK and America. An example to support healthy eating at mealtimes includes a study done in 2007, families who ate dinner together every day consumed an average of 0.8 more servings of fruits and vegetables compared to families who didn’t eat dinner together as a family (Rockett, 2007). [1] I have sourced this from an American website which references studies made by Florida state university, this supports my previous point which is that the dietary importance of family mealtimes is common and advertised more strongly in America than the importance of family communication at mealtimes. I’ve found a website supporting the points I’d found in my previous source however this one also states the extra benefits. These benefits include things such as less tension or stress between the family, better achievement as well as fewer behaviour problems. This shows that by recognizing the importance of these family mealtimes and by applying them and including them in our daily routines that it can actually improve family relations and other important/ helpful benefits. This may encourage parents to have family mealtimes. This can relate to the Johari window as parents of children with bad behaviour may be trying to improve it as they see that the child has bad behaviour, whereas the child doesn’t and this is a subtle way to try and improve it. As well as these seemingly fantastic benefits many first world countries have family mealtimes for nothing more than traditional reasons, e.g. how they had when they were children and just to discuss how everybody’s day has been and to communicate/ come together as a family. Seemingly, family mealtimes are more important in third and second world countries. It can be argued that this is due to things such as technology being less distracting as it’s less common. It can also be argued that these families are more likely to spend family mealtimes together as they are more grateful for what they have. Plus, in countries such as India their culture encourages families to be large/ very close. This is supported by their religious belief. An example of the importance of Indian mealtimes was illustrated in an English soap; Coronation Street which showed all the family sat around the dining table eating traditional and cultural Indian food. Perhaps she shows a relation between the parenting ego state, which can be somewhat applied in the mothers position as she is trying to control the family by stressing that they must have family mealtimes and the importance of them. Personally, as I grew up, I believe that my parent’s encouraged family mealtimes to help my understanding of acting differently in certain situations and to use table etiquette. Because of learning this as a child I now know how to act when going out for meals etc. However, I have found an article on the daily mail online which states; ‘Many children are left to eat alone in front of the TV, with only 20 per cent of families eating together at least once a week’, this figure staggers me as I feel as that through the use of other sources I found a lot of information which led towards the importance of family mealtimes.