Short school lunches may harm nutrition

At a time when more children are tipping the scales too heavily, Utah schools could be adding to the problem by inadvertently encouraging junk-food lunches, a state analysis released Friday shows.

The reasons: There's simply not enough time, or room in the cafeteria, to eat.

That could impact students physically and academically, as health officials contend well-fed students perform better than those who go hungry or suffer the afternoon blood-sugar crash.

A State Board of Education committee on Friday voted to encourage Utah schools to examine what they're doing and change it for the better.

Child nutrition is a national issue. Studies show nutrition and physical well-being affects academics. Yet one-fourth of all Utah kindergartners through eighth-graders are at an unhealthy weight and almost 12 percent are obese, a Utah Department of Health study released last year shows.

The State Office of Education, at the State Board of Education's behest, conducted two studies relating to child nutrition in the past month. One was on junior high and high school lunch times; the other, school vending machine profits.

• Too little lunchtime: Less than 1 percent of 214,500 students in surveyed schools have a lunch break shorter than 20 minutes, the analysis showed. On the other end, 15 percent have 36 minutes or more, according to the survey of 239 schools. The majority have between 20 and 35 minutes to eat. And the largest number, 37 percent, or about 79,400 students, have 26 to 30 minutes to eat.

The length of the lunch break is important because the stomach needs about 20 minutes after eating begins to send a message to the brain that it's getting full, said Laura Oscarson-Wilde, director of child nutrition for the State Office of Education. But other factors take a bite out of the time allotted, including the size of the school and distance between lockers and the cafeteria, number of lunch lines, cafeteria size and number of choices offered.

In schools that give 26 to 30 minutes for lunch, students still don't get the full time to eat, the analysis shows. By the time they get to the cafeteria, they're typically vying for a spot in line with 85 other students. That adds up to a lot of waiting time.

Also, 53 percent of schools, enrolling 113,700 students, have inadequate lunchroom space, the analysis shows. The problem is greater, however, in schools that require students to eat in the cafeteria: nearly three-fourths of those 175 schools were found to have inadequate space.