Being back at school has made me realize something that I failed to notice for the last year: Lunch doesn’t really exist anymore, at least not in the way it used to.
As I get back into my routine of going to classes, exercising, hanging out with friends, and binge watching Netflix as a way to relieve stress (and simultaneously give me more stress by doing so), I’ve noticed that within that schedule lunch is gone. I eat breakfast and dinner, and even the occasional brunch with my friends, but I can’t remember the last time someone asked to get lunch or the last time I sat down and had a full meal during the middle of the day.
Apparently, this isn’t an uncommon thing anymore. When talking to my friends about this, everyone was pretty much on the same page, and a real lunch didn’t exist for them either. For the majority of them it went breakfast, snack on things throughout the day, and then dinner.
When trying to figure out why this is, I thought back to being a freshman, where most of us only had enough meal swipes a week for two meals a day, and lunch was the best choice to cut out. Then I think of now, having an adequate kitchen, with all the appropriate appliances to use at any time of day, and still lunch is gone. Is this a money saving tactic, or maybe a time saving tactic? It’s hard to pinpoint it exactly. Maybe it’s both.
Even working in an office this summer I noticed that most people ate lunch at their desks, still working and looking at a screen. Yes, that’s better than cutting the meal out completely but it’s not called lunch break just for the heck of it.
In grade school, lunch was always forced upon us, and I use the word forced in the best possible way. We had 40 minutes or even an hour to take a break from classes and refuel our bodies with a (hopefully) well balanced meal in order to get us through the painful afternoon lull. Now, we may have classes during lunch hours, or feel like it’s easier to just graze all day no matter what our schedules are like.
I’m all for snacking, if I could I would make all of my meals snacks, but that’s just not realistic. The concept of lunch was made for a reason, and it’s especially important now in times of stress and growing that we give our bodies the proper nutrients it needs to actually finish the day strong.
There have been many times where I’ve skipped lunch and decided to snack a little here and there before my afternoon classes, and I have to say it hasn’t ever done me any good. A snack rarely ever makes me feel satisfied nor gives me the energy I need to power through an hour and 15-minute-long lecture in the middle of the afternoon, and often leaves me feeling way too hungry by the time dinner rolls around which results in either painful hunger, a bad mood, or overeating at dinner.
It’s hard to advocate for lunch when I myself don’t sit down and have one, but I do think it is something worth trying. Yes, some days are busier than others, and some paychecks don’t come for another week, and some days you just aren’t hungry enough for a meal, but every once in a while I say do it. Step away from the desk, the books, the screen and eat a proper meal, one that your parents used to pack up for school for you. Nothing too big, too fancy, but something more than just some pretzels or an energy bar.
Who knows, maybe meeting for lunch will replace meeting for brunch.
