'Dining room tables dying out'

2005-12-16 23:42

London - Buckling under the weight of a stuffed turkey, steaming vegetables, bowls of sauces and bottles of wine, the dining room table is the centrepiece of British family Christmas celebrations.

But this once-cherished piece of furniture no longer plays a part in most people's daily lives and is even vanishing from the home altogether because of a lack of space, a preference to eat in front of the television and a rise in divorces, two surveys have found.

Sales of dining room furniture dropped 8% over the last five years, according to a study by market research firm Mintel published on Friday.

In contrast, sales of home office furniture jumped 40% and those of bedroom furniture by 37% in the same period.

A dying tradition

Similar research by vegetarian experts Cranks found that almost one quarter of British households do not own a dining table, and of those that do, more than half said its primary function is no longer for eating regular meals.

"Dining at the table is a great tradition but with today's lifestyles its use is certainly becoming less frequent," said Ben Johnson, brand director for Cranks.

"The dining table will never totally die out - but greater time pressures have increased the demand for quicker, less formal and more flexible eating," he said.

Traditionally, families in Britain and across the world used the dining table as a meeting point for everyone to talk and discuss their day while eating dinner. Many also convened for lunch and breakfast.

But the time constraints of modern life, with parents often out of the house working until late, and the temptation of eating dinner in front of the television have eroded this age-old tradition.

Eating out also a factor

A breakdown of the traditional family model because of rising divorce rates, later marriages and more people living alone add to the shift in people shunning the dining room chair for the television sofa.

In addition, people are living in smaller flats and houses which simply lack a specific dining room area.

Nearly one third of families surveyed by Cranks, which quizzed 1 000 adults, only use the dining table on special days such as Christmas and Easter.

A mere 5% said they sat around it every day.

Esther Dermott, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Bristol, said working women often have neither the time nor the desire to cook a family meal.

Also, more people prefer to eat out than dine at home, she said.

However, the death of the dining table did not spell the end of communication between family members, she said, noting that methods of contact were simply evolving.

Men felt eating with the family "was not the most important thing, it was not the thing they talked about in terms of spending time with their children or their partners," said Dermott, who carried out a detailed survey of British fathers in 2003.

- AFP