Springdale mom urges recess before lunchtime

Students eat more, perform better, she says

NWA Media/ANTHONY REYES
Tristen Lopez, 11, leaps from the slide Wednesday Dec. 5, 2012 during recess at Harp Elementary in Springdale.  The Springdale Coordinated Health group will discuss whether children playing before lunch encourages them to eat better.
NWA Media/ANTHONY REYES Tristen Lopez, 11, leaps from the slide Wednesday Dec. 5, 2012 during recess at Harp Elementary in Springdale. The Springdale Coordinated Health group will discuss whether children playing before lunch encourages them to eat better.

A Springdale mother hopes to generate interest among elementary schools in scheduling recess before lunch.

“There’s research out there that shows that kids actually do better, they eat better, if they go to recess first,” said Molly Miller, a mother of first-grader and a third-grader at J.B. Hunt Elementary School.

Miller began studyingthe idea as a member of the Springdale School District Coordinated School Health committee and updated the committee on her progress during a meeting Thursday. The committee is weighing whether to advance the idea as a recommendation for the district’s elementary schools.

“It got the conversation started,” Miller said.

Nationwide, at least 10 states recommend schools to schedule recess before lunch in guidelines for school wellness and health programs, according to information compiled by the National Association of State Boards of Education. The states are Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia.

Nevada requires its schools to serve lunch after the midday recess, according to the association.

The Child Nutrition Department for Arkansasschools statewide developed a brochure titled “Play First, Then Eat” that lists benefits including fewer classroom discipline problems, better classroom performance, greater nutrient consumption and less wasted foods.

Miller’s interest in the idea grew out of a concern of a new practice started this year at J.B. Hunt Elementary, where her two children attend. While she has high praise for the school, she disagreed with a campus decision to require children to eat lunch in silence for five minutes.

Miller, a registered dietitian for Tyson Foods, found journal articles that found some benefits in moving recess before lunch. A 1996 study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed that recess before lunch contributed to a decline in food wasted.

Another 2004 report from Insight, a publication for child-nutrition professionals, showed a 35 percent increase in calcium consumption in schools where recess preceded lunch.

School menus this year include more fruits, vegetables and whole grains because of new federal regulations, and school officials started the quiet time because too many children were not eating their healthful lunches, she said.

“It’s more punitive asking them to be quiet,” Miller said.

Children need time to socialize during recess and lunch, she said. Moving recess to precede lunch could accomplish the same goal as the quiet time, she said.

In Springdale, at least two campuses, Jones and Lee elementary schools, send children out to the playground before lunch, district spokesman Rick Schaeffer said.

Children at Jones Elementary spend 20 minutes at recess before lunch, a practicethat Principal Melissa Fink implemented nine years ago. The daily schedule allows about 10 minutes for children to return to the building and wash their hands before lunch.

Almost 90 percent of the 630 children at Jones qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, Fink said. The only hot meal some children receive each day is the school lunch, she said. Research suggested that children would eat more of their lunches if they went to the playground before going to the cafeteria.

“I want them to fully partake in the lunch,” she said. “If having recess before lunch helps that happen, I’m going to make that happen.”

Fink observed more children eating all the items ontheir trays, following trends she read in the research. This year, though, children are leaving more food on their trays because they are adjusting to new fruits and vegetables.

Teachers report that children are calmer when they return to class when they eat lunch after recess, said Richard Denney, principal at Southwest Middle School in Searcy.

Denney, a former physical education teacher, knew that state and federal agencies recommended the practice as a strategy for healthy children for years. He decided to implement “recess before lunch” this year for 1,000 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at his school to ensure the children received enough physical activity during the day, amid all the other classes and programs.

“The noise level coming into the cafeteria is a little bit louder than it is in the classroom,” Denney said. “In the classroom, they’re more easily brought back into the learning mode. They’re eating their lunch better.”

And the children no longer have to rush through their lunches to have a few more minutes on the playground, he said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/07/2012

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