According to “Global family chance, n.d”, we need better foundations for understanding why and how families change on a global scope. A family is a group of people who are relevant to each other, specially parents and their children. According to “What Is the importance of family in modern society”, life has changed considerably for most of us. With the development of technology, changing cultural, appeared new ways to communicate.
The article discussed changes in food habits and communication between family member over the years.Food habits have changed over the years. Firstly, eating routines have changed. For example, most people tended to eat their meals together as a family at the same time. In addition, in the past, families were committed to preparing certain meals also there was eating fresh vegetables on a daily basis, while at the moment, fast food changed the food routine in some families (Petty 2017). On the other hand, the food was cooking a large amount of unhealthy fats they also use animal fat in food to enhance taste and eat bread and grease as the basis for many meals, while now most families use unsaturated vegetable oils to cook food (Petty 2017). Furthermore. Our ancestors did not consume food from the restaurants they only consumed on special events, while nowadays most families consume restaurants on a weekly basis (Petty 2017).
However, cooking nowadays has come in a quick way from past days. For instance, for a long-time people spent hours cooking over the stove. Nowadays, people consume fast food and use microwaves several times a week (Petty 2017). In addition, sales of microwave meals have doubled since the 1980s (Moss,2016). According to Michael Pollan, author of food Laws, claims that the food we choose eat must be made by ourselves (Ettinger 2016). The food cooked at home is not only cheaper but also healthier (Fallon 2018). A Further change through the years is family communication.
Firstly, Internet is crucial in communicating with family member. For example, adults of all ages see Internet as a good engine to communicate with family members (Wang & Wellman 2008). Furthermore, families that have continued communication and good conversations find that Internet helps them connect whether they were close to each other or far away, while families that do not have continuous communication or good relationships find that Internet leads to the isolation of family members ( Barna 2011) .In addition, Some people commented that the internet has improved their contact with their friends and families very much (Wang & Wellman 2008). However, the overuse of technology can be harmful to communicate with family life.
For example, the number of home TVs has increased over the past 10 years. There was a study in which researchers explored how many television sets were in each family and found that 98% of families had a TV in the living room, 71% in the bedrooms, 63% in the children’s room, and 46% in the dining area (Villegas 2012). While in the past there was one television set all over the house and all the family gathered to watch together. Moreover, addiction to technology reduces family communication leading to family fragmentation. (Turel ; Schwartz ; Bontis 2011). While reducing Internet addiction leads to constant communication among family members. In fact, there is a study on the psycho-social impact of technology on family communication, the results of this study indicate that devices connected to the Internet reduce family communication face-to-face (Kraut, Patterson, Lundmark, Kiesler, Mukophadhyay, Scherlis 1998). In conclusion, the changes between past and present have been noticeable in both food habits and family communication.
The article compared changes that have occurred over the years in terms of food and communication. Resulting in a significant change in the eating habits of families and the way they communicate with each other. Fast food sales have grown unhealthy, and that is why obesity has increased at the present time, while family communication has been reduced by modern technology, and that is why families have become unaffected.
Due to changes in eating habits and family communication it is possible that these changes will only continue to increase.
