Sunday dinner: The family tradition that we should definitely bring back to life
"The family that eats together stays together".
Thus the doctor and psychologist Vanessa Lapointe confirms the importance of shared food and meals as a moment of reconciliation and physical and emotional union with the various members of our family.
How many times in front of a table laden with food, at home or with relatives, have we for a moment put aside our daily worries?
The tradition of having a family dinner, often on Sunday, is also a way of reconnecting with close relatives and perhaps even more distant ones.
via The BL
Vanessa Lapointe expressed herself on the importance of family gatherings in front of a good meal in this way: “The family that eats together thrives together. Mealtime has historically been a time of family togetherness. Plus, if you’re getting multiple generations together, then there is a tapestry of diversity in terms of ages and interests and that is just so good for kids.”
What there is for dinner doesn’t matter because it is the communal environment that is created during this time that matters and makes all the difference. This is underlined by Anne Fishel, family therapist and co-founder of The Family Dinner Project which lists all the psychophysical benefits of eating together with her family:
“The benefits range from the cognitive ones (young kids having bigger vocabularies and older kids doing better in school) to the physical ones (better cardiovascular health, lower obesity rates and eating more vegetables and fruits) to psychological ones (lower rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse and fewer behavioral problems in school).”
If the atmosphere at the table is warm and inviting and the little ones can also feel free to express themselves together with the more adult members, then all these benefits could progressively occur, says Fishel.
It is not necessary for the family get-together to take place on a Sunday, as is the typical Western tradition, but any day of the week, whether for lunch or dinner; as long as we want to find the desire and the time to overcome the often seemingly insurmountable differences with distant relatives and also those who live nearby that we may not see so often because they are not exactly "nice".
Furthermore, the most recent psychological theories have emphasized the importance of lunch or dinner with one's family. In fact, if the right atmosphere is created, it is the ideal opportunity for different generations to connect, from the smallest to the oldest, in a chain of love and affection which is a system of values that we urgently need today!
