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I've noticed every year the lunch breaks are shorter and shorter. But what bugs me even more is lunch periods starting at 10am; the kids are totally out of gas for the late afternoon classes.
http://www.ktvq.com/news/cram-sessio...school-lunch-/There are very few important tasks you can complete with any kind of success in just 11 minutes.
Maybe you can get an oil change in that time.
Backup your computer's hard drive? Possibly, though unlikely.
Eat and digest a nutritious meal at a critical age for development? Not really.
And yet that's exactly the amount of time a pair of Minneapolis middle schoolers say they receive to finish their lunch each day. And they would know. They've actually been timing it.
Sixth-graders Talia Bradley and Antonia Ritter found themselves so rushed to get down their lunch -- and so bothered with how it ran completely counter to the lessons they learn about the importance of healthy eating -- that once they put down their stopwatch, they booted-up their computer -- and fired off an op-ed to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about their daily lunchtime cram session and its implications for childhood obesity and student performance.
"In the Minneapolis public schools," the students wrote. "We are supposed to have 15 minutes to eat, which would be bad enough. But realistically we get only 10 to 11 minutes."
"When about a third of American children and adolescents are overweight or obese, the schools shouldn't be adding to the problem. But they are, perhaps unknowingly. Research shows that eating fast causes people to consume more calories and enjoy the meal less," they added.
Talia and Antonia say the students are allotted 30 minutes total for lunch and recess. However, "there's the time going from class, down here, to our lockers, and then outside" as well, Antonia told WCCO. The end result? Students defaulting to easy-to-scarf, low-nutrition choices which many times end up half-eaten and discarded so they can milk those last few minutes of recess, the middle schoolers say.
Among the people who read their column was Minneapolis Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson. Troubled by this dispatch from the frontline in the Food Wars, she decided to join the students for lunch one day. And she brought her own watch.
Lunch that day lasted for 11 minutes. "This is a short amount of time to eat, and we should work to find a solution," the superintendent told WCCO.
And it's not only a problem in Minneapolis. In many areas, kids are being rushed through a condensed lunchtime only to return to class unsatisfied and not exactly recharged for the backhalf of the day's lessons.
In a post on TheLunchTray.com led "The Incredible Shrinking Lunch Period," Iowa dad Chris Leibig explains how beginning as early as kindergarten, his daughters were given 15 minutes for lunch. And between getting their food and cleaning it up, were often lucky to even get that much time. He says other parents "told of how their kids came home hungry every day, or finished their lunches on the walk home from school."
Beyond just the health and school performance concerns tied to a truncated lunch (as if those alone aren't enough) Leibig says children should have more time to eat "because they're people who deserve social time over a meal just like adult people do."
When parents met with school administrators about this, he writes they were told that because of school performance benchmarks tied to No Child Left Behind, schools are expanding instructional time at the expense of recreational time. And, school lunch advocates argue, at the expense of valuable lessons on lifestyle choices and social development.
But while you can have a reasonable debate over whether that's a fair sacrifice, back in Minneapolis some changes are planned, including introducing more salad bars in schools which did not previously have any.
Now if only the students can have enough time to eat those greens.
As the young journalists wrote in their editorial, "Having to rush to eat is part of the reason for the obesity epidemic, eating disorders, indigestion and kids not doing well in school. There is research that proves all of these points. Kids just need more time to eat at school."
I've noticed every year the lunch breaks are shorter and shorter. But what bugs me even more is lunch periods starting at 10am; the kids are totally out of gas for the late afternoon classes.
It's about time someone brought this up.
I wonder what the kids did to get it shortened to 11 minutes. I know where I work they made the kids start eating in the classroom because they were starting a food fight every day.
I don't ever recall having trouble with lunch in Texas, but I very vividly remember lunch starting at 10:55 when I lived in Wisconsin. It was so weird.
Lunch time starts from the time the bell rings but then the kids take time to line up, walk down to to cafeteria, stand in line, get their trays and then by the time they sit down they only have a short time left.
in Obama...
Reminds me of chow time during boot camp.
Amen sistah
Wow 11? That used to be 45 minutes.
lol I'm the master of eating in 10 minutes.
[QUOTE=Shadowflames;5861476]Wow 11? That used to be 45 minutes.[/QUOTE
Back when they had recess?
Well maybe if they stopped texting for a bit, they'd have more time to eat.
Wtf? Recess in middle school?
[QUOTE=Hungry farmer;5862990]Talking about my days in Junior high. It used to be at least 30 minutes. When I got to HS it was 45.
Each period lasted about 50 to 55 minutes. The lunch period was always scaled down to around 40-45.
My how times have changed.
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