What are you doing at lunch? Whether it’s club meetings, test make-ups, or other bizarre reasons for depriving your appetite, not a lot of students are eating at lunch anymore.

How many clubs meet at lunch? On average, each club meets at least once a month. Taking a look at the daily bulletin posted on schoolloop, there are at least three to four clubs taking place a day, not to mention clubs that email its members individually.

On top of that, most students are in more than one club. How many club meetings a week? How many missed lunches and empty stomachs? The loss is unimaginable.

Often, when students miss a day or two of school, they make up tests, activities, and go for class help during lunch. Taking a test takes up nearly or over an entire period, and it swallows lunch up as well.

A quick walk down the hall and there are students chattering, burying their faces into textbooks, or rushing furiously from one side of the school to another. The people who are eating are often munching a bag of chips or a measly salad.

Then take into account the number of students who do their homework during lunch because they don’t have enough time at home. The majority of students at Monte Vista have after school activities. Some are on school sports teams, others have extracurriculars or volunteer.

Many students don’t have time to eat after school either. A solid majority has extracurriculars and another fraction has to make up class work after school.

To sum it up, a number of Monte Vista students don’t eat from 8:00 in the morning to 5:00 at night. Over half of Monte Vista takes a zero period, basically leaving them hungry from 6:30 in the morning until they arrive home.

It is also often noted that teenagers carry food around with them all over the place. If there’s no time to eat at lunch, students eat in the hallways, in the classrooms, anywhere and everywhere. Teachers get tired of it and many have banned food in their classrooms during class.

If you don’t like food in class, give kids a chance to eat. Don’t cram in homework just because you can.

Duly noted, teenagers are almost always hungry. Skipping a meal isn’t healthy. Not to mention, many students skip breakfast in the morning. If this is taken into account, a number of students only eat one meal a day.

This is a pandemic that needs to be stopped.