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The article, "Nobody wants to eat at home" (Times of India August 20th 2000) was very detailed and informative. The authors did a great job in putting it together but the why and wherefore of this new behavior is not sufficiently analyzed. The end results of these social and cultural changes also need to be examined. I would like to add a few of my thoughts.

I have nothing against restaurants but wonder why people have to eat out in restaurants as much as 4 times a week? Is it the mere availability of the new and wide variety of cuisine in the markets? Or is it just the availability of more money in people's pockets? If the answer to either of these questions is a "Yes", it begs further questions: Does availability of any commodity mean that it should be misused without the slightest regard to its long term effects?

Does it mean that if one has money and things are available, one should throw all restraints and concerns about health and over indulge in all kinds of unhealthy practices, especially in a country where cardiovascular deaths are alarmingly increasing? If the economy is booming, does it automatically mean that people should lose all discretion and bring about more disease and death upon themselves?

Does anyone ever stop to ponder over these issues? What kind of quality control goes into the making of food in these restaurants and how strictly are the health codes enforced in a country where if you take care of the norms, the rules take care of themselves? Who is the final beneficiary of this kind of unhealthy life style?

Take the example of cigarettes. Every individual right from the founder of the cigarette company to the guy who digs graves outside your home town benefits from this lethal attraction. It is only the smoker who is the real loser. Similarly with the kind of unhealthy eating we witnessed in the above article, a wide variety of people including the restaurant operators as well as physicians (especially cardiologists) can look forward to fatten their pockets. Well why not? The economy is booming, right? The real indication of a booming economy should be things like healthier air, water and food and easier access to better health care including preventive medicine and not just the availability of more number of restaurants.

One might argue that increasing professional demands leave less time on hands for the working woman to be able to cook frequently. There is some truth in it. But how busy can one be, that a whole family has to eat out 4 times a week? I am a practicing physician required to be available on call any time of the day or night. My wife is a full time scientist and also takes care of our 3 year- old. And we live in a city, which, at least in my opinion, has the second best assortment of restaurants in the United States. But we still do not eat out more than once a month! Clearly the bigger question is: "Where should one draw the line?"

We should learn a few lessons from the social history of the United States. In the 60s and 70s, this country was well known for its excesses. The snowballing effects of this kind of social behavior led to such wide spread devastation that by the 80s, the country had become the leader of all preventable diseases. A "Western life style" has come to be recognized as a major risk factor for several diseases. The country finally woke up and started cleaning up the mess by cutting back on these excesses and it is now called life style modification! Indians seem to have jumped on the band wagon of excesses about 3 decades after the Americans, with predictable disaster. An ounce of prevention is very much in order. It is the right time to examine our behavior before we are forced to make "life style modifications"! To paraphrase George Santayana, an un-examined life is not worth living.

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