FINALLY, a formal study has come out confirming that about 87 percent of the Saudis who go to the restaurants consider their going there to be a type of entertainment for themselves and their children. This is one of the societal mistakes in the understanding of the real meaning of entertainment or recreation. It is obvious from this study that our society does not differentiate between entertainment and the need to go to a restaurant. A number of people criticized me when I said in a previous article that our relationship with the restaurants is weird and not conceivable. This relationship is different in its concepts from the relationships of other people of the world with their restaurants. It is a distorted relationship, which needs to be corrected. The survey study was conducted by King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue. It was made under the title: «Is going to restaurants a need or an entertainment? The results of this study have put before us new facts concerning the nutritional behavior of the Saudi citizens. The rapid increase in the number of restaurants made it very natural for a number of citizens to go to them. According to the study, about 88.4 percent of the surveyed people said they go to the restaurants at least once a month. The most shocking result, however, is that about 94.9 of the people surveyed were married. They said they go to eat in the restaurants about 21 times a month!!! The paradox in our local culture, therefore, lies in understanding the main objective of going to the restaurants. In the minds of many citizens, this has been linked to entertainment. They go to the restaurants believing that they will be entertaining themselves and their children, which is extremely natural considering the lack of recreational places in our country. The newly-born Entertainment Authority should see to it that our country is replete with recreational places. It can easily do this if it is able to deal properly and correctly with this file. The authority should make sure that it has enough qualified manpower, should provide more job opportunities and create the conducive atmosphere for its work. The authority should hold anyone who does not do his job properly responsible and so punish him or her. It should not make itself an executive body, which will compete with the private sector in the establishment of entertainment bodies. We need to find recreational activities, which will have eating and drinking only on their fringes. This will be contrary to our present entertainment activities that are in fact occasions for shopping and eating while recreation, which should be their real concept, is just a by-product. In the issue of restaurants, we are concerned with putting an end to the misconception and confusion in the minds of many citizens between eating and entertainment. Our citizens should realize that eating and drinking were never part of the entertainment. The eateries have been established to cater to the physical need of hunger more than they are recreational tools. The international restaurants are very clear in this aspect. They refuse to mix between eating and entertainment. They do not have special places for children to play. In direct contrast to this, our eateries have made the children playing areas their main objective. Through the dedication of areas for children to play, they are in fact trapping the old men and women to go there so as to fill their stomachs. We have to correct this situation especially in the rapid increase of the fast-food restaurants, which have largely contributed to the spread of obesity among our children and the increase of diabetes among the old.
