Holding grade school recess before lunch rather than after is significantly more effective at encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption than simply requiring students to take a fruit or vegetable with their lunch and fewer children throw food away, Cornell University and Brigham Young University have concluded in a joint study.

When lunch occurs directly before recess, students are often allowed to leave for recess as soon as they are done eating; this scheduling can create an incentive for students who place a high value on recess time to eat their food — or rather, be “done” with lunch — as quickly as possible.

“This desire to minimize eating time can decrease the percentage of children that consume the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, thus leaving children feeling hungry for the rest of the day,” the study says.

The conclusions are based on data collected at seven elementary schools, all from the same school district in Utah. Three of these schools moved their recess to occur before lunch at the start of the 2011- 2012 school year. The other four schools, used as the control group, continued to have recess occur after lunch.

▪ Joseph Price and David Just — Lunch, Recess and Nutrition: Responding to Time Incentives in the Cafeteria