“What did you have for lunch today, honey?”
“Did you make sure to eat healthy?”
“Oh, don’t tell me you just scarfed your food down did you?”
Few students can look at their parents and answer these questions saying that they did have a healthy lunch or even ate at all. Something that is apparent is the little time students are given to eat lunch. Day by day it has seemed that having enough time to eat food at a steady pace is a task that is unmanageable and just unrealistic. A half hour for lunch may seem fine to the schooling system considering the faster students get back at the books the better but no one is really benefiting from this crammed lunch time and ever so frustrating lunch time.
In France, the average lunch time for public schools is two hours. Many superintendents from these schools have commented that eating is a part of life and is a life skill. Children at a young age need to learn how to eat correctly which they also have linked to a leading cause of obesity in the US. Children are not learning how to eat correctly in school and carrying these habits throughout their lives. Not only do the French have longer lunch hours, but they offer smaller portions as well! It’s obvious that all around they find it more productive to pace themselves and eat less. They also believe it is a time to be social and communicate with other classmates. With 30 minutes for lunch the average student might be able to share one interesting story on what had happened that day. French schooling systems believe that lunch is a time for students to engage in the social aspects of their lives.
Something the school boards need to realize is they are not giving students 30 minutes to eat. They are giving them 30 minutes to put their books back in their locker, walk to the cafeteria, get in line, pay for our food, eat, go get our books, then walk to the next class. For those that go off campus it’s even worse! From the time it takes to drive to a destination and pay for their food, a student is lucky to get five minutes to eat. School boards need to assign lunch times according to how much time it takes for a student to get lunch and actually eat. Just recently, a student got in his car and got completely obliterated going to lunch. The front side of his car looked like my dog had been chewing on it. What had apparently happened was everyone on the road was in such a rush to get food, they didn’t even notice the red light! The whole line of cars was brought to an abrupt stop and the poor student’s car was history. It is common sense to think that if students weren’t in such a rush to get their food, the need to drive fast would be eliminated.
As students and past students, everyone can relate to the blood boiling frustration which is the lunch time rush. Pedal to the metal and pushing children down in the hallway, it all needs to stop. Lunch time is a happy time, enjoying one of the most important aspects in our lives which is eating. We need to have more time to socialize and be able to catch up with friends especially if we don’t have classes with them. Lunch time needs to be the time of the day people look forward to and don’t dread because they get a stomach ache every day from scarfing down food. Let’s help stop this epidemic which surrounds us every day, the epidemic none other than lunch time.
