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.: January 2010 --> Recess before lunch as a new best practice for elementary schools

Recess before lunch as a new best practice for elementary schools

» Plus this: Scheduling recess before lunch results in less food waste, higher consumption of milk, fruit, vegetables, and water, increased academic time, and fewer behavior problems. Not only are the kids not rushing lunch to get to recess, I'll bet they are hungrier when they sit down, and less likely to turn their noses up at foods they might have been skeptical about before. "Kids are calmer after they've had recess first. They feel like they have more time to eat and they don't have to rush." Janet Sinkewicz, principal of Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J.
 [ 01.27.10 ]


2 Comments

I read an article recently, but can't find the citation - it was about how Americans are exercising more than ever, but are still overweight. There are multiple reasons for this (including that people have limited personal discipline, which they use to exercise, but then neglect to limit their food intake).

But one of the reasons was that when exercise stimulates our appetite, we tend to consume more calories than we burned exercising in the first place. So we run on a treadmill for half an hour, and burn 350 extra calories, but then we eat a bigger lunch that has 500 more calories than we would normally eat. This was shown to be true for both kids and adults.

By the way, this really becomes an issue at fast food restaurants that entice families to visit with a kid's play area. The kids play so hard in the play area, that the kids will eat a second round of food. So not only did they entice the family to come in the first place, but they sold them more food than they would have otherwise. Evil, eh?

The school plan sounds good on paper: less food waste, more fruit and vegetable consumed, but I have to imagine that more of everything is consumed, including all the not so good foods. Now if the kids were getting four hours of exercise, that probably isn't an issue, but my guess is that they are only getting 30 minutes of exercise. Enough to stimulate the appetite, but not enough to burn serious amounts of calories.



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