THE SANE VIEW
Family meals – eaten with or without festive paper hats – are hailed as the ultimate way to nourish mind, body and spirit. A quick internet search of ‘family meals’ turns up a slew of research that claims to link communal eating with a range of benefits: reduced risk of childhood obesity, greater chance of happiness for adults, improved exam results for teenagers and even lower incidence of drug use among adolescents are all linked to regular family meals.
No one could seriously challenge that eating together is A Good Thing. A meal enjoyed with our nearest and dearest can be a calming punctuation point in a hectic day, an important chance to share worries, catch up on news, bond and eat well. But are the purported benefits of eating together being exaggerated?
These days, panicky newspaper headlines mourn The Death of the Family Meal and the associated erosion of children’s social skills, as if they were catastrophes. So we could all be forgiven for feeling like failures if we don’t manage a magical gastronomic get-together every night. However, the millions of people who can’t achieve this domestic Holy Grail can take heart. According to researchers and psychologists, the truth is nowhere near as simple as headlines suggest.