School lunch. If you are one of the millions of parents who send their kids to school each day, you probably know by rote the hot lunch schedule or the favorites your child wants in her cold lunch box. But do you really know how much time your child actually gets to eat lunch? Beyond that, do you know what that lunch time routine can mean for your child’s overall health?
There has been a long standing debate about how to best serve healthy lunches to school children. The discussions have now moved beyond what is just on the tray and onto the environment of school lunchtime itself. Parents all over are hearing children complain about limited time to eat food, lunch monitors who hurry children through the meals, and the ever-present worries about the ultimate favorite subject: recess.
The Harms of a Hurried Lunch
One health specialist, cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston warns parents and school officials to take a close look at how school lunches are actually served, beyond what is just on the plate. He describes how slowing down a meal and moving away from the fast-food mentality is essential for creating healthy eating habits with our children. Agatston even goes as far as to say that teachers should be eating with their students, encouraging civilzed dining experiences where children learn how to develop social dining skills. It is not a matter of more time equaling more eating, equaling rising obesity rates. When children are allowed to eat their food unrushed, they are given the opportunity to taste, chew, and digest their meals which in turn teaches them how to recognize when they are full.
Dr. Agatston is not the only proponent for longer lunch times for kids. Former Chief Medical Health Officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, Dr. John Blatherwick feels that an optimal duration for school lunch is between 24 and 35 minutes, not including the ever-important recess. Students need time to wash, relax, and eat their lunch in order to be able to operate at their best for their afternoon classes, as well as develop a healthy eating routine. Children who have ample time to eat will be better prepared for a full afternoon’s busy schedule and can boost their academic performances.
While it might seem that 15 minutes for lunch (a typical amount allotted in an elementary school) is sufficient, in reality it is much less than 15 minutes. By the time the children move from either class or recess, wash their hands, and go through the lunch lines the actual time available for eating can be drastically less than 15 minutes. Some parents and school officials acknowledge that students might actually have only 7-9 minutes to eat their meals when all of these actions have been considered. On the other side of the hurried spectrum is France, where on average school children have a whopping 2 hours for lunch and recess, ample time to consume their food, visit, and recharge for the rest of the afternoon.
One Parent’s Journey for Better Lunchtimes
One mom of 3 in Minnesota has been learning how lunch time can be a source of stress and anxiety for the students who get 15 minutes for lunch each day. For the better part of a year Lisa heard her 3rd grade daughter complain about lunch. It wasn’t necessarily the menu, but how she just couldn’t finish her meal on time, and hurrying through would give her a stomach ache that would interfere with the rest of the afternoon classes. Lisa decided to see for herself if these were words of typical childhood complaints or something more that needed to be addressed.
Unannounced Lisa joined her daughter for lunch one day, arming herself with her phone for timing the activities and a notepad for her covert mission. Like a handful of schools across the country, Lisa’s daughter’s school holds recess first in an effort to take away the temptation for children to rush through their meals and waste food in attempts to have as much time as possible on the monkey bars. Lisa met the class outside on the playground and saw for herself just how much time was taken to line the children up and wait to be herded into the building, where the kids then went to their lockers and waited in line again to proceed to the lunchroom.
By the time the children were into the lunchroom, several minutes were taken away from the meal time. The first child in line had 12 minutes to eat, while the last child in line for a hot lunch had just 7 minutes to consume the entire meal. Not only did some children have extremely minimal time to actually eat, but they were surrounded by lunch monitors kindly, yet firmly, reminding them that they didn’t have much time to eat so they needed to eat, eat, eat.
Lisa saw after this one lunch period how her daughter could indeed get off the bus with a stomach ache, either hungry from missing lunch or upset from speeding through it. She went to her school’s principal who simply told her that while he can empathize, there simply aren’t enough hours in the school day to give more at lunch time and still reach their academic requirements. He challenged Lisa to find those extra minutes herself, because he just didn’t see from where they were supposed to come.
What can parents do?
- Do as Lisa did and just go watch how the lunchtime routine works in your child’s school.
- Make an appointment with and go visit your school’s principal to discuss any concerns you might have.
- Talk with other parents to see how their children feel about the lunchtime routines.
- Check in with teachers to see if they have concerns – such as kids who complain about hunger or stomach aches more so in the afternoon.
- Consider packing cold lunches for your child if he is a slower eater so he doesn’t have to spend any extra time in line.
If you don’t find solutions with these small steps, you don’t have to give up. Continue to find a solution by trying some of the following.
- Formally inform other parents, teachers, and school administrators of your concerns with a written letter documenting the situation.
- Present your concerns before the school board. Each school has its own protocol for how to go about being placed on the meeting agenda, but plan for at least a one month notice.
- Develop a petition for parents and community members to sign requesting a minimum of 24 minutes for actual lunchtime. This petition can be presented to the school board or taken to your state government.
- Write letters to your state’s representatives from the Department of Education. Request meetings with them and formulate options.
Our children are in school to experience one of the most important portions of their lives – their education. We can’t equip them to be successful in the classroom if we don’t teach them healthy eating habits and give them the daily opportunities to practice what we preach.
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