How long should lunch be?

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/

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  • Good topci choice and well done Lindsey! I do think you could have replied a few more times yesterday. +5 new topic

  • I think we should have a longer passing period instead of having a longer lunch. Lunch is fine at 30 minutes, most the time kids don't each that much in that time frame. If passing periods were long, i feel a lot of kids would appreciate that, then we can socialize. 

  • I think that we should just have longer passing periods rather than a longer lunch period. This way we can still talk to friends before we leave for class and we won't be late for class if it is across the school. Lunch is a good amount of time and I don't think it needs to be any longer.

  • I personally think that lunch is fine as it is. The reason I think this is because I usually finish my food without being late. It doesn't seem like it's enough time but I even get to be able to relax and chill on my phone for some time.

  • I think that our lunch is the perfect length. I have time to eat, go to the bathroom, and socialize/play on my phone. If it were longer, it would be boring because you would run out of things to do. if it were shorter it would be a rush to finish eating and go to the bathroom.

  • I think that we have enough time to eat lunch. I do think that students talk to much or on their phone that makes them seem like they don't have enough time to eat. I think that 30 minutes is enough time to eat. 

  • In my personal opinion I think that they should just keep lunches at the length they currently are. I think that any shorter and students would not be able to get their lunch, get seated, and still have enough time to finish eating their meal. If they make it any longer I think the day would simply be longer than needed.

  • I think school lunch should stay the same as it is now, which is about a half an hour. This gives us enough time to eat all of our food as well as have some time to socialize. We don't really get the chance to talk to our friends during the rest of the day so that is one valuable thing about having a lunch long enough to do so. The free seating at lunch also makes it easy to socialize with friends so I think they should leave that too.

  • I think lunch is the perfect time because I usually finish my food with around 10 minutes left, and with those ten minutes I can talk to my friends. I think if they could make it shorter if they needed to, but I would prefer if it stayed the same.

  • I think lunch should be the same length of time as the rest of our periods. My reasoning for this is because most of the time the lunch lines are really slow and it takes quite a bit to get your lunch. So by the time you finally sit down to eat, most people are already done eating. So it would be nice if lunch could be just a few minutes longer at the least.

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