Can something as simple as the timing of recess make a difference in a child’s health and behavior?

Some experts think it can, and now some schools are rescheduling
recess — sending students out to play before they sit down for lunch.
The switch appears to have led to some surprising changes in both
cafeteria and classroom.

Schools that have tried it report that when children play before
lunch, there is less food waste and higher consumption of milk, fruit
and vegetables. And some teachers say there are fewer behavior problems.

“Kids are calmer after they’ve had recess first,” said Janet
Sinkewicz, principal of Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J.,
which made the change last fall. “They feel like they have more time to
eat and they don’t have to rush.”

One recent weekday at Sharon, I watched as gaggles of second graders
chased one another around the playground and climbed on monkey bars.
When the whistle blew, the bustling playground emptied almost
instantly, and the children lined up to drop off their coats and
mittens and file quietly into the cafeteria for lunch.

“All the wiggles are out,” Ms. Sinkewicz said.

One of the earliest schools to adopt the idea was North Ranch
Elementary in Scottsdale, Ariz. About nine years ago, the school nurse
suggested the change, and the school conducted a pilot study, tracking
food waste and visits to the nurse along with anecdotal reports on
student behavior.

By the end of the year, nurse visits had dropped 40 percent, with
fewer headaches and stomachaches. One child told school workers that he
was happy he didn’t throw up anymore at recess.

Other children had been rushing through lunch to get to the
playground sooner, leaving much uneaten. After the switch, food waste
declined and children were less likely to become hungry or feel sick
later in the day. And to the surprise of school officials, moving
recess before lunch ended up adding about 15 minutes of classroom
instruction.

In the Arizona heat, “kids needed a cool-down period before they could start academic work,” said the principal, Sarah Hartley.

“We saved 15 minutes every day,” Dr. Hartley continued, “because
kids could play, then go into the cafeteria and eat and cool down, and
come back to the classroom and start academic work immediately.”

Since that pilot program, 18 of the district’s 31 schools have adopted “recess before lunch.”

The switch did pose some challenges. Because children were coming
straight from the playground, the school had to install hand sanitizers
in the lunchroom. And until the lunch system was computerized, the
school had to distribute children’s lunch cards as they returned from
recess.

In Montana, state school officials were looking for ways to improve
children’s eating habits and physical activity, and conducted a
four-school pilot study of “recess before lunch” in 2002. According to
a report from the Montana Team Nutrition program, children who played
before lunch wasted less food, drank more milk and asked for more
water. And as in Arizona, students were calmer when they returned to
classrooms, resulting in about 10 minutes of extra teaching time.

One challenge of the program was teaching children to eat slower. In
the past, children often finished lunch in five minutes so they could
get to recess. With the scheduling change, cafeteria workers had to
encourage them to slow down, chew their food and use all the available
time to finish their lunch.

Today, about one-third of Montana schools have adopted “recess
before lunch,” and state officials say more schools are being
encouraged. “The pilot projects that are going on have been
demonstrating that students are wasting less food, they have a more
relaxed eating environment and improved behavior because they’re not
rushing to get outside,” said Denise Juneau, superintendent of the
Office of Public Instruction. “It’s something our office will promote
to schools across the state as a best practice.”

Children’s health experts note that such a switch might not work in
many urban school districts, where lower-income children may start the
day hungry.

“It’s a great idea, but first we’ve got to give them a decent
breakfast,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at
Children’s Hospital Boston. “A lot of kids skip breakfast and arrive at
lunch ravenous.”

And for a seemingly simple scheduling change, it can create some
daunting logistical problems. Children often have to return to hallways
and classrooms after recess for bathroom breaks and hand washing and to
pick up lunch bags. The North Ranch Elementary School regularly fields
calls from schools in colder climates with questions on how to deal
with coats, hats, galoshes and mittens. “In Arizona, we don’t have to
deal with that,” said Dr. Hartley, the principal.

Many school districts say such problems make them reluctant to
switch. A 2006 study in The Journal of Childhood Nutrition &
Management reported that fewer than 5 percent of the nation’s
elementary schools were scheduling recess before lunch.

But at the Sharon Elementary School, the principal, Ms. Sinkewicz,
says the challenges have been worth it. In the past, children took
coats, hats and mittens with them to the lunchroom, then headed
outside. Now they have time to return coats to lockers so they don’t
have to carry them to the lunchroom.

“For some reason, kids aren’t losing things outside,” Ms. Sinkewicz said. “The lost-and-found mound has gone down.”