Should Lunch Be Longer?

It’s 12:00 p.m.—lunchtime at last. You make a beeline for the cafeteria. It’s pizza day, so you know you’ve got to get there quick. You walk through the doors and join the long line.

The minutes tick by. Your stomach grumbles as you glance at the clock. It’s 12:12. The lunch period is nearly half over!

Finally, you get your food, scramble to a seat, and start to chow down when—RRRRING!

You shove a big bite of pizza in your mouth before scurrying back to class.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Lunch periods in the United States vary, but in many schools, students have around 25 minutes. When you consider how long it takes to get to the cafeteria, wait in line, and take a bathroom break, there isn’t much time left to eat. Sometimes kids only have five minutes.

Experts say this time crunch is doing students a disservice. Having more time to eat, they say, would lead to less food waste, improved learning, and healthier habits. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the School Nutrition Association recommend students get at least 20 minutes to eat after they’ve been seated.

That’s why today, some schools have started making lunch periods longer.

Should more schools do the same?

Lunch periods weren’t always so short. In the past, students got closer to 40 minutes. Then about a decade ago, schools began shortening lunch to make time for extra instruction in core subjects, like reading and math. But when it comes to learning, shortening lunch is actually counterproductive.

“[Lunch] is a time for students to recharge and connect with their peers so that they can go back to the classroom ready to learn again,” says Juliana Cohen, a nutrition professor at Harvard University who researches school lunch. In other words, students need a break in order to focus in their afternoon classes.

Extending lunch also leads to healthier choices. According to Cohen’s research, kids with at least 25 minutes of sit-down time eat more veggies and fruit. (If you only have five minutes, who can spare the time to peel an orange?) That’s not all. Longer lunch is good for the environment too. A 2021 study showed that the more time kids have, the more of their lunch they eat—so less food ends up in the trash. The study appeared in a medical journal called JAMA Network Open.

Now, some say we should make lunch lines more efficient rather than make lunch periods longer. But that’s not enough. We all need a break during the day, and 25 minutes doesn’t cut it. Kids in France get up to a whole hour ! So what are we waiting for?