How long should lunch be?

[5Lindsey]

Lunch at our school is 30 minutes. During this time students need to get to the cafeteria, stand in the lunch line, eat their food, and put their trays back. So should lunch be shorter or longer? There are pros and cons to both sides. 

 

The CDC recommends that students should get at least 20 minutes of time to eat their lunches. This does not include the amount of time it takes for students to stand in the lunch line and get their food. However, many times once students are seated they only have 15 minutes or less to finish their lunch. Nutrition experts say that 15 minutes or less is not enough time for kids  to properly eat and digest their food. It is also better for students mental health if they have time to socialize during lunch. 

 

However, if lunch was longer, the school day might also be longer. This would leave students with less time for after school activities, and can also make students more tired from a longer day of school. If lunch was longer and the school decided to keep the school day the same, then lunch would take away class time. Then the teachers would have to fit their lesson plans into shorter classes, and students would have less time to learn the material and ask questions about it. 

 

In my opinion, I think they should just keep lunch period at 30 minutes. I feel like I have enough time to eat lunch, and I don’t think it's worth making the school day longer or taking away from class time. 

 

Do you think lunch should be longer or shorter?

 

If so, how long do you think lunch should be? 

 

Sources: 

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/longer-lunches-smarter-students-the-controversy-of-10-minute-or-1-hour-lunch-periods 

https://www.livestrong.com/article/525829-pros-cons-of-longer-school-lunches/

[3Jaylee]

I think lunch period should stay the same how it is becasue you have enough time to go through line eat and talk to your friends then dump, even somedays lunch seems really long. If it was longer i think more kids would sign out to go eat lunch somewhere else 

[2Jacob]

I personally believe that lunch should be the same because it is the right amount of time for people to talk to their friends, eat and dump their trays in the time that we have but I also think that if you have B lunch teachers should be able to dissmiss student so then they have enough time to eat.

[7Grace]

I think that the lunch period should stay at 30 minutes, it gives kids time to eat and talk and go to the bathroom. If they wanted to change it, I think they should make it  longer so kids had more of a break in the middle of the school day.

[2Aidan]

The lunch period should stay the same because it's the average amount to eat, dump your tray, relax, and talk to your friends. But I think that if they remove WIN students can get to lunch quicker if they have A lunch but I think that if you have a class upstairs and you have B lunch you should be able to get dismissed early.

[2 Mason]

I think the lunch time is fine for right now  and a perfect amount of time to eat and relax. I do think that removing WIN will help people get to their class on time so we can have extra time to talk to friends and if we stay for a few minutes after the bell rings like what happens a lot to me in Foods, but still have time to get to my next class.

[5Tempy]

I feel like we should get rid of win because theres no point in it espacially if we have study halls. Yes, its nice to have but we could also just talk to the teachers when we need to. I would like to be able to talk to my friends for a little bit longer because we don't really get much time for that even in class we would get in trouble for talking. (well in some classes we can talk but not very many classes allow you too.

[5Erin]

I think that lunches should be about 5 minutes longer. This for our school could just be either taken from WIN time or added back on to the end of the day. But I feel students should get more time to talk to friends because I know that at least for me I have no other time during the day to talk to my friends.

[7Chloe]

I personally don't think that there's any issue with the length of our current lunch period. I've never had an instance where I'm scrambling to eat my lunch, but I also never have much time to do anything other than just get in line, eat, dump my tray, and leave. If we were to make a change to the lunch period it should be that we extend it by a couple of minutes, but any less time would be too little.

[3macy]

I personally think that the length of lunch right now is a pretty good time. The students who decide to get school lunch stand in line for a couple of minutes, but they still have time to eat and talk with their friends. If lunch was shortened then the students wouldn't have enough time, but if it was longer then students would start causing trouble.

[7 Weston Reisz]

I think school lunch should be longer. I am a slow eater and like to have time in between classes to gather my thoughts and just relax. It also depends how long the lunch lines are but I still think it should be another 10 minutes or so.