Lunch periods at Abraham Lincoln High School only last 20 minutes. Whether you’re a freshman just entering high school, or a senior who’s been here all four years, everyone finds themselves eating for only 20 minutes.
“Twenty minutes is probably a pretty standard amount of time for a high school lunch,” Principal Bridgette Bellows said.
Looking into different schools Lewis Central High School has a thirty five minute lunch period. Treynor High School gets twenty five minutes. Central High School allows thirty minutes of lunch. Sioux City West, East, and North High Schools collectively have twenty eight minutes. North High School gets thirty minutes. Lastly, Atlantic High School has a thirty minute lunch period.
But Harris School Solutions argues that, “Shortened Lunch Periods Promote Poor Food Choices…according to a 2015 Harvard School of Public Health study, when students had less than 20 minutes to eat, they would consume unhealthy, less nutritious, and quick foods first.”
Twenty-minute lunch periods cause students to eat faster. They tend to throw more nutritional items away and eat unhealthy foods and drinks as time ticks down to the end of lunch.
“I feel like the school lunches are too short,” ALHS student Keegan Miller said. “I wish they were longer so I could relax more while eating lunch.”
A key aspect of lunch is relaxing and talking to your friends. According to The Native Voice, “School lunch periods provide time for social and emotional development where students can build community and help each other. Talking to other people brings social connections and stronger friendships.” Thus, if kids have a shortened lunch period they have less time to socialize and communicate.
As much as the 20-minute lunch periods affect the students, they affect the lunch staff of only thirteen workers more. Less time between lunches means the staff has to work faster to present and prepare food for the students.
When asked: Do the twenty-minute lunch periods affect you as a lunch lady? Lunch lady Kristine Jeffrey said, “Twenty-minute lunch periods do affect us as lunch ladies. There is little to no time to finish serving one lunch line and to prepare for the next group.”
Twenty-minute lunch periods allow for the right amount of credits for students to receive, but it also leaves students struggling to eat faster in the short amount of time, and less time to socialize with friends and relax. Twenty-minute lunch periods are unhealthy for students, so maybe the amount of time students get for lunch will change.
