The family who eats together

What’s the price of a family meal? For many families in the world’s wealthiest countries, the answer seems to be, ‘too much’. For instance, in the United States,     1     is often a trendsetter in such things, the majority of families report eating a single meal together fewer than five days a week. In fact, the frequency of shared meals     2     (decrease) in American families by 33 per cent over the last twenty years. The meals     3     have shortened too: from an average of 90 minutes to just 12 minutes.

So perhaps we’re better off asking ourselves     4     the cost of not eating together is. Once again, we could turn to the figures. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has found that 15-year-olds who reported not regularly     5     (share) family meals were twice as likely to be absent from school. In Europe, research has suggested that children who don’t eat dinner with their parents at least twice a week face a 40 per cent higher risk of fatness. Another study,     6     (conduct) by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (滥用) at Columbia University, found that kids who eat dinner with their parents five or more times a week are     7     (likely) to have problems with drugs and alcohol.

But those numbers, impressive     8     they seem, may be beside the point. After all, having a meal together is more than just a preventive measure     9     future misfortune. The primary cost of the family meal is also the very thing that makes it important: time.

The time spent together over food leads to all the positive outcomes that are measured in the studies. That time spent together has less noticeable—but no less real—effects too. So often,     10     is at the family meal that the family as such—the family as an organic unit with shared memories and feelings and ambitions—is made.

Wearing shoes can weaken ankle bones

Your shoes are changing your feet. The ankles of people who     11     wear shoes are different to those of people who tend to walk barefoot. In many industrial societies, people tend to wear shoes from a young age. However, many people around the world often go barefoot, or wear only very thin footwear.

“We know that there are some     12     in the feet of modern humans, due to the use of shoes,” says Rita Sorrentino at the University of Bologna in Italy. But most     13     findings relate to the front and middle of the foot. She and her team have focused on the ankle instead. They studied 142 ankle bones from 11     14    

The hunter-gatherers’ ankle bones were significantly shorter than those of people living in modern cities, and there were other differences in the shape. “They are mostly related to footwear-related behaviours and movement behaviours,” says Sorrentino. The hunter-gatherers walked barefoot for long distances every day over natural land. Their ankles were relatively     16    . In contrast, people who live in big cities, who wear tight footwear and walk short distances on flat surfaces like concrete roads, had more unbending ankles.

Changes to ankle bones take place over the course of a person’s life, and there is no evidence that these alterations can be passed on     17    .

According to Sorrentino,     18     evidence for people wearing shoes only exists for the past 10,000 years. For instance, a sandal from a Missouri cave may be 8300 years old. Early shoes were all fairly soft, so wouldn’t have     19     the motion of the ankle much.

It is an open question whether shoes have disadvantages, but Sorrentino     20     that the firmness of modern shoes causes our bones to become weaker and more likely to suffer from breaking.

Why do so few people find fulfillment in their work? Amy Wrzesniewski, a Yale School of Management professor who studies these issues, offered an explanation that made a lot of ______. Students, she said, “think their calling is under a rock, and if they ______ enough rocks, they will find it.”

Surveys confirm that meaning is the top thing Millennials (千禧一代) say they want from a job. And yet her research shows that less than 50% of people see their work as a calling. So, many of her students are left feeling anxious, ______, and completely unsatisfied by the good jobs and careers they do secure.

What they—and many of us, I think—fail to realize is that work can be ______ even if you don’t think of it as a calling. The four most common occupations in America are retail (零售) salesperson, cashier, food preparer/server, and office clerk—jobs that aren’t typically ______ “meaning.” But all have something in common with those professions that are, such as teachers and doctors: They exist to help others. And as Adam Grant, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has shown, people who see their work as a form of

That means you can find meaning in nearly any role in nearly any organization. ______, most companies create products or services to fill a need in the world, and all employees contribute in their own ways. The key is to become more conscious about the service you’re providing—______ and personally.

How? One strategy is to constantly remind yourself of your organization’s main ______. Life Is Good is a clothing company best known for colorful T-shirts with stick-figure designs, but its mission is to spread

Even if you can’t get excited about your company’s mission or customers, you can still adopt a service attitude by thinking about how your work ______ those you love. Consider a study of women working in a shoe factory in Mexico. Researchers found that those who described the work as dull were generally less productive than those who said it was ______. But the effects went away for those in the former group who saw the work (however boring) as a way to support their families. With that attitude, they were just as productive and ______ as the workers who didn’t mind the task.

Not everyone finds their one true calling. But that doesn’t mean we’re fated to work meaningless jobs. If we ______ our tasks as opportunities to help others, any occupation can feel more significant.

When an editor called to ask if I could photograph a story about fireflies in Mexico, I didn’t check my schedule before I said yes. I’d seen these insects light up the forests in Tlaxcala once before, and I jumped at the chance to go back.

I had three nights to capture the magical scene in the forest. Camera stand in hand, I hiked with my colleagues into the foggy forest at dusk. According to our guides, visitors are usually not allowed to photograph the fireflies because the presence of artificial light from electronics can affect their habits. As I started shooting, I adjusted my exposures constantly to account for the fading light. In order to get the composition that I wanted, I placed my camera stand on a steep, rocky path and had to steady it during the long exposures. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but the fireflies were very interested in the camera and, by extension, in me. I stood completely still while they crawled all over me—my arms, my hair, my face—and tickled (呵痒) my nose and cheeks. From what I observed, peak firefly presence happens for only about 20 minutes each night, so I had time for just a few tries.

On the last night everything came together. The weather cooperated. I had improved my method for focusing and composing in the dark with quick flashes from a powerful flashlight—and I’d grown accustomed to insects on my face. I was rewarded with the image you see here. Each spot of light is one of several bursts that a firefly makes as it travels in a 30-second exposure. You can trace the insects’ paths: Some make small circles, like those in the bottom center of the frame, while others move steadily in one direction or another.

The first time I visited the fireflies, I didn’t have the pressure of trying to capture and convey this astonishing scene. That will always be my favorite experience with these shining creatures.