Recess/Extended Lunch

When we’re kids we receive a period in the school day both for lunch and for recess. Once you move on from elementary school, however, recess is taken away. Furthermore, the lunch periods in many middle and high schools are shorter than those in elementary school. The norm seems to be that high school students get between 30 and 40 minutes for lunch. In my middle school, we only received 20 minutes. In my high school in Texas (where I spent freshman and sophomore year), we received a full hour. At the high school I attended in Vermont for my junior and senior years, we received half an hour. I remember thinking in middle school that 20 minutes was barely enough time to go through the lunch line and sit down. I felt similarly when I had the half hour lunch period in Vermont. When I had an hour for lunch in Texas, there was plenty of time to go through the lines, eat, and then spend some time catching up on homework or sitting outside in the sun. I preferred this partly because I could eat at a less agitated pace and partly because it gave me time in the middle of the day to relax—like recess used to be a time for that in elementary school. I feel as though having that time during a 7 or 8 hour day of classes is just as important to learning as attending those classes. It made it easier to concentrate for the rest of the day and gave me time to shake off the stress and tiredness of the classes beforehand. I often find myself wondering why recess is something restricted to young children, and why middle and elementary schools are so reluctant to offer a more extended lunch period.

Question: Do you think having extended lunch periods or some form of recess in middle and high schools would be beneficial or harmful to the education system?