My school expects students to eat their lunch in 20 minutes. Every time I sit down at the lunch table, I feel rushed. I feel like I need to have to eat my lunch the fastest way possible so that I do not go hungry for the rest of the day. When I heat my lunch in the microwave, I hurry so that I have enough time to eat it. I feel anxiety and frustration just by waiting because of the same previous reason. Out of every student, I am lucky because I bring my own lunch and I do not have to wait in the lunch line to get cafeteria lunch. Getting lunch from the cafeteria can take about ten minutes or more because the lunch ladies are so slow to serve lunch to students, which then leaves ten minutes or less to eat. The food that is served is not healthy food. They serve pizza, nachos, chicken nuggets, etc. This is all fast food that you can get at Pizza Hut, Cheeky’s, or Macdonald’s.
The United States is known to have health problems like obesity. I believe one of the reasons is because of the school lunch’s time given to eat. Scientists say that you need to eat your meal for at least 20 minutes to stay healthy, otherwise, your body stores fat and your weight increases. But what the school doesn’t take into consideration is that, as previously stated before, some students have less than 20 minutes to eat their lunch because they're waiting in the lunch line or the microwave line. Lunch is also an opportunity to be social and talk to your friends, to be off your phones, which means that some students spend more time talking than eating.
Lunch is the only real break that we have during the day. We never see the sun or get to digest before we go back to class and continue working (“working”, not “learning”).
When I was in school in France (my home country), we had an hour and a half to have lunch. The school I went to was both a middle school and a high school. Both levels had lunch at different times. Middle school had their lunch break from 11H00 to 12H30 and high schoolers would have their lunch break from 12H00 to 1H30 with 30 minutes overlapping with each other’s schedule. By 12H00, middle schoolers were already done with their lunch to let high schoolers have lunch.
For an hour and thirty minutes, students could do anything they wanted and eat anytime it suited them during that time frame. I was lucky to be in a school that has a beautiful park with trees, two soccer fields, a basketball field, two tennis fields, two ping-pong tables, a lake, a small stream, and even geese roaming freely around campus (they had little ducklings when I attended there one year). When my lunch break started, I either went to walk in the park with my friends before having lunch to not have the stress of waiting in line with hungry teenagers, or I went to eat first and then went to walk in the park to digest. When it rained, we were allowed to stay inside buildings. When it was sunny outside, we would walk around until lunch break was over. Other students played basketball, soccer, or basically anything they wanted.
Our lunch consisted of an entrée, a meal, and then a dessert. Food changed every day. It was never the same as the day before. Our entrées consisted of grapefruit, paté with bread (they had baguettes from bakeries cut right in front of us), a salad, sausage, etc. Our meals were mashed potatoes, lots of vegetables, meat that they would cook right in front of us, fish, etc. For desserts, we could have strawberries, fruit salads, chocolate cake (on special occasions), yogurt (of different flavors), cheese, etc.
Students and parents have been complaining about lunch for a long time and the only change that I have seen in the new cafeteria that my school has built is different sections with fancy names for the same food that was already served. For example, the “International” section serves nachos. My school has technically done nothing to change. It only changed its appearance.
Here are my beliefs and changes I would make: have lunch be at least 45 minutes so that everyone can have time to get their lunch from the cafeteria, eat their food and be able to socialize with their friends, give them somewhere they can rest or play to digest and relax, and of course, have healthy cafeteria food. I think that to change, America should take examples from countries that have fewer health problems (like obesity), countries that are healthy to change the American school lunch system, like the school I was in France for example.
I believe that if America wants to decrease its obesity rate, she should probably change the lunch system in public schools. I know that the lunch system is not the only factor of health problems, but it is a step towards change, a step towards a better, healthier life. It would be a step towards a better, healthier America.
