Bring back the dining table

WHATEVER happened to the dining table? Tucked away in a corner;

polished to within an inch of its life; covered in pot plants and photos

of the children. It is as dead as most grand pianos these days.

Instead the chairs are pulled round the television and crisp packets

on the carpet in front of them show where the family eat. There has been

a change in eating habits in the past 20 years. No longer does the

family gather round a table arguing, describing their day, getting

advice. They sit in a silent circle passing the pizza and shushing

anyone who interrupts the telly show.

I think it is a pity. It stops the parents getting an idea of what

their children are thinking and doing and it stops the venting of the

stresses of the day. Talking about what went wrong or right helps. We

bottle it up as we watch make-believe situations and hope our problems

will go away.

Many a teenager faced with having to make a decision about how serious

she or he should allow a relationship to become, has no occasion to say,

''Tina or Jock asked me to the disco,'' and so start a general

discussion where advice may be offered obliquely and without offence.

''Did they have drugs in your school, mum?''

This sort of opening is a cry for help. It is more important than

Coronation Street and ''Shush, I can't hear the telly.'' It may be the

beginning of a real life tragedy for someone you love.

Bring back the dining room table. Get the family elbows on it and the

family chat above it.

What about the extra washing of table cloths? Where did the old

spongeable oil cloth disappear to? It is still made in Kirkcaldy. I buy

some every year I go to France. They still get their elbows on it as the

family sit round talking and eating. I can buy only a thinner German

version in my local store. No wonder recession bites here.

Perhaps part of the reason that we have no get up and go is that many

of us are as starved as the waifs we see on the telly in Somalia, not

because we don't eat enough but because we don't eat the right things.

A young woman came in to see me complaining of mental and physical

exhaustion, weakness on standing up or going up stairs, disorientation,

confusion, irritability, and loss of concentration.

I was a bit confused myself by the seriousness of her complaints when

she did not look unwell or thin, but when I asked her what she ate all

became clear.

A can of coke for breakfast followed by two cans of coke and two

packets of crisps for lunch: more of the same for extras followed by

microchips, peas and a can of soup for telly supper. For the rest of the

evening she filled up with bread and jam washed down with coke. She was

getting enough calories but nothing else. She was starving.

Another patient ate chocolate bars all day and little else. She gave a

similar history.

If the young are not taught to look forward to one proper meal a day,

eaten at table, they naturally get into a habit of snacking. Schools are

all self service or lunch box snacks. Bring back the dining table, I

say.

A can of coke and a bag of crisps looks silly on a table. We would

never contemplate it as a set meal. It is only sitting screen glued that

allows us to munch and swallow without any idea of what is going down.