#38. What Happened to School Lunch Hour?

We’ve mandated nutritious school lunches, but we don’t give kids time to eat them.

Rawpixel

Dear friends,

Do you remember school lunch hour? That is, do you remember when “lunch hour” was an hour? If you do, please tell me what year that was. I’m trying to figure out when most schools took that precious time away from kids, especially from those in elementary school.

In the 1950s through ‘70s, at least, lunch hour was the best hour of the school day for most kids. More learning occurred then than at any other school hour because kids had time to socialize, play, and think. Socializing, playing, and thinking are how kids learn. In my thread on Reminiscing About Recess some respondents beyond a certain age recalled that lunch hour, not recess, was their favorite time at school, because it was longer than recess and less closely supervised.

For many kids, maybe most, lunch hour is now too short to eat lunch.

As far as I can tell nobody today is even trying to renew time to play and socialize at school lunchtimes. The concern now is that kids don’t have time to gulp down their food. Many elementary schools allot only 20 minutes for lunch, and that includes the time it takes to visit the washroom and stand on line to be served, which can sometimes take most of the 20-minute period.

Here is what one parent, in Berkeley, California, reported upon observing lunch at her child’s school (quoted by Ettinger, 2019): “We heard the ending bell and there were still 18 kids waiting to be served. They got their food and dumped it right into the trash.” In the same article, Angela McKee-Brown, director of a nonprofit aimed at promoting gardening and nutrition at schools, is quoted as saying, “It’s becoming a stressful, almost traumatic experience when kids go into the lunchroom.”

In one study, researchers measured the time children with 20-minute lunch periods had to eat (Sparks & Porthero, 2023). Here is part of that report: “We’ve stood at the lunch line with stopwatches. For students who are at the end of the lunch line, we’ve measured kids with as few as five minutes to actually eat their meals.”

Not only do schools fail to allot enough time for lunch, but some serve it ridiculously early in the morning. In a Washington Post article, Valerie Strauss (2019) reported that, according to federal rules, schools are supposed to serve lunch between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., but “at some schools, kids are served lunch at 9 a.m., and at least one New York City school, lunch starts at 8:58 a.m.”

Federal law mandates wholesome lunches, but much of it gets trashed because there isn’t time to eat it.

In 2010 the U.S. Federal government mandated that all public schools include fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in school lunches, to improve nutrition for the nation’s children. But, according to some reports, more than half of that—especially the fruit, which takes longer to eat—gets dumped because students don’t have time to eat it. One study (reported by the Centers for Disease Control, 2019) found that many students decline to participate in the school lunch program because of insufficient time to eat it.

At least two research studies have shown that if lunch period is increased even just by 10 minutes, from 20 to 30 minutes, so students have more lunch seat time, the result is significantly increased intake of healthy foods and less garbage (Burg et al., 2021; Cohen et al., 2016).

What is wrong with us?

The reports I’ve found about lunchtime in our schools boil my blood. Do we as a nation hate children? Why do we, through government school policies, treat them in such a shabby manner? Adults would not stand to be treated that way. Does anyone honestly believe that a few minutes more time studying for the stupid state-imposed exams is going to make such a difference that we should be making kids gobble their food in stressful, rushed conditions, or miss lunch entirely?

Surveys have shown that teachers are well aware of the problem. In one survey, 75% of teachers agreed that students don’t have adequate time to eat lunch (Sparks & Prothero, 2023). So why don’t they do something about it? Are teachers helpless? Are they complete sheep, unable or unwilling to stand up and insist that changes be made? There is no excuse for this. I don’t buy the argument that teachers are powerless. Collectively, they could change things if they had the will. Teachers are willing to strike for higher pay; they should be willing to strike to protect the health of our children.

Further Thoughts

I’ve spent years documenting the harm our compulsory schooling system does to children. But what I found now, in researching the issue of school lunches, is new to me. My initial goal was to find out when schools stopped giving children time at lunch to socialize and play, to do what children really need to do to learn and stay healthy. What I found instead is that schools now don’t even give children time to sit down and eat their meals in a relaxed manner. If it were just one report or study, I would think there are just a few bad-apple schools, but there are so many such reports, from all over the country. Much of what schools do to children is even more harmful, but this denial of time to eat lunch is so obviously odious, easily understood by anyone regardless of their views about how children thrive and learn, that I’m amazed parents and teachers aren’t rebelling.

What do you think? What do you know about school lunch periods? And, back to my opening question, do you recall when public school lunch hour was an hour, and, if so, when was that and where?

With respect and best wishes,

Peter

References

Burg, X., et al. (2021). Effects of longer seated lunch time on food consumption and waste of elementary and middle school-age children: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open 4(6).

CDC (2019). Making time for school lunch. Online report.

Ettinger, A. (2019). Lunchtime is so short in some public schools, students are going hungry. Washington Post, Aug. 26, 2019.

Juliana F. W. Cohen, J., et al. (2016). Amount of time to eat lunch is associated with children’s selection and consumption of school meal entrée, fruits, vegetables, and milk. J Acad Nutr Diet.116:123-128.

Sharma, A., et al. (2017). Food choices and service evaluation under time constraints: the school lunch environment. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 29 No. 12: 3191-3210.

Sparks, S., & Prothero, A. (2023). Teachers say students don’t have enough time to eat lunch. here’s how to change that. Education Week Oct. 5, 2023.

Strauss, V. (2019). Lunch at 9 a.m.? That’s when a lot of schools start serving it to kids. Washinton Post, March 29, 2019.