Recess before lunch - finally common sense

September 4, 10:56 AMDenver Health ExaminerDonna Feldman

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Recess first, lunch second. (www.cbsnews.com)

There plenty of parental and societal angst about kids' nutrition, especially in schools.  Feel-good changes, like restrictions on vending machine selections and birthday party cupcakes, give people the impression that Something Is Being Done.  But of course, if kids aren't even eating the food they have, nutrition discussions are pointless.   A healthy homemade lunch that comes back squashed and uneaten is also a nutrition problem, and also impacts school performance.

A friend, who is also a registered dietitian, went to eat lunch with her Littleton elementary school children a couple of years ago: "I was hoping for 15-20 minutes of “down-time”, visiting with the kids and their friends,  catching up on events.  In my dreams.  Kids were jamming food into their mouths, eating maybe 1/3rd of their food, and throwing the rest away.  Why the rush and waste?  To be first in line to go to recess.   Several of the boys could qualify as a Olympic Speed Eaters.  One boy shoveled four French fries into his mouth, mumbled a few words and tossed the remainder of his meal into the trash.  All in less than five minutes."

Solution?  Recess Before Lunch.  RBL seems like a simple solution, but in fact getting it implemented in a public school was a monumental task.  Opposition came from teachers and other parents who didn't want to deal with anything new and different.  But after months of planning and logistics,  the program was implemented.  During that first year of RBL, the principal noticed that the cafeteria was noticeably calmer.  Kids weren't hurrying through lunch anymore, because after lunch they went back to the classroom.  

That's nice, but what about nutrition?  The parents decided to measure milk waste and compare it to purchases and waste before RBL was implemented.  Prior to RBL, 1/3rd of the milk sold was dumped in the trash.  A few months after RBL started, milk waste was reduced to 1/5th the amount sold.  Principals and teachers also report fewer behavioral problems.  At one school, suspensions went from 33 to 4 in one year.  Other comments include: kids eating more, less rowdy behavior in the classroom after lunch, fewer playground incidents and fewer injuries.  As one principal said "We won't even consider going back - RBL is working very well!"

So if kids now have more time to actually eat their lunch, it makes sense to send them with healthy food.  Some tips from the California Raisin Board include:

• Make healthy eating fun and get your kids involved in planning their own lunches
• Be realistic about what your child will actually eat.  Sure, tabbouli sounds good to you…but to your child?
• Be sensitive to the effect of peer pressure and your child's comfort level with "creative" lunches.  A cookie cutter sandwich shaped like a bunny rabbit may not appeal to all age groups.
• Avoid good food vs. bad food traps.  Forbidden foods become more appealing.  A small sweet treat is OK if it (1) is small and (2) contains some healthier ingredients, like nuts, granola and dried fruit.

I would add: don't cave in to whining.  I've seen my share of nightmare lunches.  The worst example had to be a girl who pulled a can of soda and 4 chocolate bars out of her lunch box.  That's not lunch.   That's parental laziness.