School lunches at South tend to feel rushed and unenjoyable for students to actually get a break from class. According to atriumhealth.org, you need 30 minutes to eat a meal correctly and digest it in a healthy manner. I know of many people at South that run out of time to eat and end up shoving their food into their mouth with only 15 minutes left to get back to class. Atriumhealth.org says that doing that to your body will likely lead to overeating and/or indigestion.
As most of you know, South offers an open campus lunch for all of the students, most schools are not as fortunate as us to have this privilege. With an open campus, we are able to go home or go out to eat where we would like. The places across South such as Farms Market, Sugar Bar and Hydrangea get plenty of business from our students during lunch time every single day. With South lunches only being 38 minutes long, students find themselves more stressed out at lunch to rush and get their food so they can eat, rather than being able to have a relaxing meal to recharge your body for the next half of your day.
With our lunches being so short, it has promoted many students to take what is called a “double lunch”. This is when students will go home or just get called out of their 3rd, 4th or 5th hour so they can have a longer lunch then what the school gives us. Even if you get enough time to eat, there is no time for extra things that you might want to do such as talking to your friends, seeing a teacher or running home to grab something you forgot.. Making our lunches longer, even just by 10 minutes, would have a big impact on students’ experiences in school everyday. According to wedontwaste.org, food really does make us happier boosting our long term mental health, which, isn’t this school all about?
