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Monica Yant Kinney: Schools should know morning is no time for lunch
On Sept. 10 at 9:42 a.m., Trevor Wuest will sit down for his first high school lunch, whether he's hungry or not. That the Archbishop Ryan freshman may force-feed himself meat loaf and mashed potatoes at such an un-lunchlike hour is a sign of these strange times.
Trevor, a typical teenager, would rather not draw attention to his plight. But his mother, Virginia, is bracing for a food fight.
It's ludicrous, she says, to make students eat lunch when they've barely digested breakfast. Especially since many schools, like Ryan, have strict no-snacking rules.
"Food is fuel. Without it, your brain isn't going to work," Wuest argues. "I know my son. He's not going to be hearing anything his teacher says in last period because his stomach will be growling."
If landing early lunch wasn't bad enough, Trevor's schedule has him finishing the day with . . . algebra.
"Math," Wuest frets, "is his absolute worst subject."
Feeding a crowd
When I attended high school in the 1980s, we ate lunch at, well, lunchtime. I couldn't have stomached the thought of chicken patties at 10 a.m., but that's what's on the menu for teens today.
Blame big schools, overcrowding, and ever-increasing demands on teens' time for forcing administrators' hands when it comes to student mouths.
South Jersey's Washington Township High School has four cafeterias for 2,800 students. Lunch begins at 10:05 a.m.
That's nothing. At Philadelphia's elite Central High, lunch has been served as early as 8:20 a.m. Some kids skip it to squeeze in another activity, leading them to chow down later in class.
Archbishop Ryan has 1,805 students, only 500 of whom can fit into the cafeteria. Early lunch provides one advantage, according to school president Mike McArdle: "You get the food at its freshest."
Perhaps, but at what cost?
"Food is as important as any other school supply a kid has," says local dietitian Althea Zanecosky.
"Most food is out of your stomach in four hours. And if you had a kid who ate a high-carb meal, he'll be hungry again in a couple hours."
If helicopter moms aren't already nauseated over the lunch trends, chew on this: A 2006 study by Penn State researchers Claudia Probart and Elaine McDonnell found that eating lunch early led teens to pick a la carte items over more nutritious hot meals.
"If my lunch was at 9:30 in the morning, I wouldn't sit down and eat roast beef and green beans," admits Probart, an associate professor of nutritional science. "I would buy a snack."
Upsetting the apple cart
Back in Northeast Philadelphia, Virginia Wuest is doing Mom math.
If Trevor eats lunch in the morning and is forbidden to scarf a Clif Bar later in the hall, he'll be ravenous when he gets home at 3:30 p.m.
"So he'll snack," she says, and "then he'll balk at eating the family dinner with us at 6 p.m."
Then, her growing 14-year-old will want to fill up again at 8 or 9 p.m., just before going to bed - "which we know is the absolute worst thing you can do."
Given a family history of obesity and eating disorders, Wuest has cause for concern that something as seemingly insignificant as a school lunch schedule could hurt her son's habits and health.
"And what if his grades suffer because he's hungry at the end of the day?" she asks. "I'm paying $6,000 a year for him to get an education."
Wuest asked to have Trevor's schedule changed but was told he'd need a doctor's note. She's so disgusted over the lunch situation, she considered transferring him to another archdiocesesan school.
This week, Wuest dropped by Father Judge High School to chat with the ladies in the office. She didn't like what she heard:
"Their first lunch period starts at 9:30 a.m., five minutes earlier!"
Contact Monica Yant Kinney at myant@phillynews.com or 215-854-4670. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney.
