Longer lunch needed at AHS

by Aly G.

Recently, I went with some friends to buy some snacks from the snack cart in the cafeteria. I went in line, got my snacks and waited for my friends to get their snacks. As I waited, I pulled my phone out to check the time, 12:20. After waiting for my friends, we hurried back to the art room to eat our lunch there. When we got back, I checked the time again from my phone and we only had 6 minutes to eat our lunch. This is a regular occurrence, not just for me but for all of AHS. Students are heard frequently complaining about how quickly they must scarf down food. While some stakeholders argue that lunch is short to maximize instructional time and to prevent kids from doing bad things with their superfluous free time, AHS should have longer lunch breaks for students. Lunch needs to be longer to enable students to have enough time to eat their lunch before returning to class.

The first reason is that lunch should be longer to let our brains and bodies have a rest. We should let students have enough time to eat/rest after a long hour of class. Everyday, students use their brain a lot, for seven hours of school. Wake up early, drive/ride the bus to school, eat breakfast and get ready to head to class to start the day. School is very tiring to students and the only free time they would have is lunch, but only for 20 minutes. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “A little downtime is important for your brain health. Researchers say that taking breaks can improve one’s mood.”

A second reason that having more extra time at lunch would be beneficial to students is to enable students to leave campus for lunch. Students should be allowed to leave campus to pick up outside of school. Students should not have to wait in the cafeteria line still to get their tray of food.Students would wait in a long line to get their food while drivers pick up their food. But choosing to lunch comes with a consequence. Drivers would come to school late while the other students don't have enough time to eat their lunch after waiting in a long line.

A third reason is when one doesn’t eat enough, their behavior can change. They can be aggressive or too overwhelmed. Researchers state that building too much stress can cause negative effects/behavior towards him/her. School is very draining and stressful. We use so much energy everyday to arrive at school.

Another reason we should have longer lunches is because the arguments in favor of shorter lunches are problematic. People in favor of short lunches might say having a longer lunch break might leaves more time for students to get up to bad behaviors. However, this is assuming the worst of our students. Being able to have a longer lunch break will help students spend extra time to themselves, can distract their mind and be able to use the extra time to catch up with any work, enough time to eat their lunch, or time to themselves to reset their head before heading back to class.

Students at AHS seem to be in favor of longer lunch. “Sometimes the students that are in the back of the lines would visit longer to get their lunch. By the time they get their food, he/she only has five minutes to eat,” says Noah E. “I wish we had a longer lunch break than just having 20 minutes. I would feel unmotivated after lunch but will force myself to work,” said Liam S.

In conclusion, we should have a longer lunch for students to have enough time to eat, a brain break, letting others pick up their own lunches. If you agree that school lunch should be longer, email the principal and make your case!