The Family gets together to Eat Meals is Disappearing IELTS Writing Task 2

In the past, having a family meal together was a sacred thing. No matter how much you are stuck at work; one finds it way home to eat with his children and cherish the family time together. But with the changing times and lifestyle, the priorities of the people have changed. Now, due to hectic schedules and work pressure, one barely finds time to return home and enjoy family time together. Especially for the working women, it becomes very difficult to give time to their children and they often find their escapism in engaging their children with gadgets. The gadget lifestyle of the children has created an impact on their mental well-being. Children these days lack patience and are hardly interested in sitting with their parents together for a meal. Instead, they prefer having their meal in front of the TV, watching their favorite cartoon or shows.

Family mealtime holds a great significance in a person’s life. They not only help in building a strong bond with the family manners but contribute a lot to the overall personality development of children. Having a meal together is not just about eating together but about discussing different things, sharing the whole day’s happenings, knowing about each other more, understanding each other much better. With the vanishing of the tradition of eating together, the overall personality of the children has been affected a lot. Children these days are more introverted, they start to lose a connection with their families, they face trust issues. Spending more time on gadgets, in their virtual world, they have lost the trust in the real world and found their escapism in the virtual world.

There is no denying that the family tradition of eating meals together has vanished but not completely. There is a serious need to think about this issue and families must work together in bringing this old tradition back. The negative impacts of these vanishing cultures are extremely serious.

Having meals together builds a sense of positivity among the family members especially children. It brings stability to the family. But the decline of this culture of having meals together creates a negative impact on the lifestyle and personality of a person, in particular children. The rising trends of gadget life and eating while watching TV have abstained the children from sitting with their family and sharing their meal. Eating meals alone while watching TV or phone makes children more isolated and they start to find their comfort in isolation away from family. This isolation affects the behavioral pattern of the children and tends to make them more of an introverted kind to the person, who finds it difficult to cope with the family relationship with their parents.

Besides having a psychological impact, eating alone also impacts the physical health of the person, especially children. In their growing years, children need more nutrients for their bodies and a healthy diet plan for overall growth. But most children today are more dependent on junk foods and snacks when they feel hungry. While eating alone, they tend to eat more oily and spicy junk food instead of healthy meals, which in turn affects the nutritional content of their body. These junk foods lead to many diseases like gastric problems, obesity, liver dysfunction, kidney problems, and many more.

Another big reason contributing to the decline of this culture of eating together is the changing work pattern of the parents, especially working mothers. With hectic office schedules, work pressures, and late working hours, parents often miss lunch and dinner time with their loved ones. They have prioritized their work over the family and that has been continuously reflected in the decline of the family eating together culture.

All these facts point in one direction that the tradition of families eating together, sharing, and discussing has become a thing of the past. For most people, it’s a waste of time. Hence the consequences are even more serious.

Time has become a major factor that has greatly influenced the meal with the family segment. Most of the people lack time to sit with their family, have a meal together, discuss each other’s life and share their experiences. With the advancement of the work culture, the competition has increased in the field of jobs, people have to go beyond their caliber to be in the race and to secure their job. Most of these meals are eaten while scrolling through the work documents, designing presentations, client meetings, or colleague’s discussions. Now, with this increased work pressure, family time has lost its priority and has come down to the list of least priority of all. Even the holidays and weekends are for chilling with friends and partying. There is no space left for the family to sit together and discuss stuff.

Besides, most of the people are away from their family in some other cities or countries for work and education. They hardly get a chance to meet their families and chill with their families. This changing pattern and lifestyle of people are reflected in their personalities which have been negatively affected. People have lost the sense of family values, their importance. People have become more private and isolated in their life. They tend to suffer more from trust issues and lack family values.

In conclusion, these factors have made the family tradition of eating together more negligible. The decline of this culture is in its verse. People need to engage more with the family and realize its importance before it gets too late. They need to find time for their families, have meals together, discuss their plans and experience before these family values get extinct.