Eat at the table? Why bother?

10 reasons why it's a good idea to ditch TV dinners

These days, families often eat separately, with family members just grabbing a snack or heating up an instant meal. However experts are increasingly urging people to go back to the traditional meal. They reckon that families will be happier and healthier if they just turn off the television, sit around the dinner table and have an old fashioned family meal. do they have a point? We think so - here are our 10 reasons why you should turn the TV off, sit at a table with your family, and eat!

1) You'll get to know each other! If you don't eat together, it's all too easy to become strangers who happen to meet on the way to the bathroom or who nod at each other rather than looking up from the Nintendo, a DVD or the laptop.

2) You'll save money. Chicken and spuds and veg, or a spag bog will cost around a fiver for four people. The local kebab house just can't to that!

3) Your kids will open up to you. All too often parents are unaware if their children are being bullied or having problems at school. Sitting down, over a good meal, they are far more likely to tell you, voluntarily, about their day's events - it can be oh-so-illuminating.

4) You will find peace!  Eating together will provide a respite for you all. The kids will moan about it at first, but it is surprisingly wonderful to create this family time space when no one in the house is working or doing anything else other than being with each other. Move over yoga, the family meal is the way to perfect karma!

5) You'll be teaching the kids table manners. And they ARE important. If they can't sit down to eat nicely with people, it won't help them socially - they'll put friends and potential partners off and will be lousy at business meals. Don't let it happen to them! Teach them to eat with their mouths closed and to use a serviette.

6) It will help your kids to appreciate good food. And if you get more adventurous than roast chicken or spag bog it'll teach them to be more adventurous about what they eat. Opening up your family's repertoire is an important way of helping them to learn to eat well.

7) You'll all eat more slowly - and that's healthy! Research has shown that eating slowly will make you more healthy and increase your lifespan. It also means that you're less likely to become obese. Got to be good, huh?

8) You'll discover the art of conversation.  Sit together every night and talk and you'll be teaching your kids and yourselves how to be more articulate. A life skill that we all benefit from.

 
9) You'll be setting them a good example for life.  Want their childhood memories to be of snatched meals eaten from carboard boxes? Course you don't! Get on it now and they'll take the tradition forward themselves into their adult lives.

10) Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you'll start to feel as if you're part of a family. You'll have an opportunity to make plans and to do things together, to listen to each other and respect each other. Can eating together be underestimated? We really don't think so...

By Carol Muskoron