Until recently, I had forgotten the simple pleasure that comes with eating at the dining table. I don't think it too far-fetched to suppose that even families who are lucky enough to have dining room capabilities, rarely eat their meals at the table more than a couple of times a week. However, as our lives become increasingly hectic and intra-communication seems to get less direct, the experts agree on the importance of sitting around some simple wooden furniture as we eat our dinner.

Family development professional Rebecca Falck at allexperts.com was asked of the positives of eating dinner around the table, her response was clear. "Television is meant to capture attention. If it is on, it is on a station that is of interest to at least one person at the table. That person is less likely to listen to others and less likely to participate in any family discussions."

Falck's is an easy point to agree with, but I can't help but wonder whether TV's impact on the family meal may well be twofold. For example, try to remember a scene on television (especially between five and nine in the evening) when a family enjoy a happy meal at the table. Can you? It seems that the dining room is nearly always the dominion of family dysfunction and misery. Turn it off!

In relation to the above, other experts have pointed out the risks of eating together at dinner time. Susan Moore, dietician, has said "It's not the time to talk about cleaning their room," as the benefits of eating together will not be felt at all. But if the mood is relaxed, and the food is to everyone's tastes, families have been known to be far more cohesive, with siblings remaining closer to one another when they leave home also.

It has even been proven that children who eat dinner round the table regularly do better at school, regardless of social, class or ethnic background. Researchers at Penn State University found that students who eat around the table are better readers, with bigger vocabularies and achieve higher test results. Consequently, teens who are less likely to get into trouble are those who have eaten round the dining table an average of five times a week.

Personally, the reason we don't eat round the table as often as we should is because our dining room furniture is most often so covered with clutter we forget it's there. But with these aspects in mind, trying to imagine a classic family meal with the entire group seated on an equal level, with everyone's concentration focussed on the food and those around them, and with the whole family in attendance and relaxed - and I don't often find myself advocating such traditional pastimes - but it's strange how it seems so idyllic now when it used to be so normal.