The research found parents believed children needed at least 15 minutes to eat their lunch before being allowed to go out to play, which most were not receiving.

Kennington Primary School principal Travis Eddy said it was important to prioritise meal breaks for students in order to create an ideal learning environment throughout the day.

"At Kennington, our kids get 15 minutes to eat at both break times, and as far as I'm concerned, they always have been," he said.

"The kids need time to eat and they're not having to rush. We recognise it's important."

Both parents and teachers were asked via the online survey for their opinions on the adequacy of their child's/school's allocated lunch eating times.

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The study found 10 minutes was the average time allocated to eating with 58 per cent of parents and 30 per cent of teachers noting this as insufficient.

"Our research found that some parents also believe limiting eating times influences the types of food their children wanted to take for lunch," Deakin school of exercise and nutrition sciences researcher Dr Melissa Burton said.

"For example, with less time to eat children are more likely to prioritise the most appealing foods in their lunch box, such as the treats, which are often nutrient poor.

"These findings not only have implications for children's health but also their ability to learn as research tells us that good nutrition is necessary to help children thrive academically."

Based on the results, increasing allocated lunch time would improve the school food environment, and if children were given more time to eat, parents believed they were more likely to finish what was in their lunch box.

A similar percentage of parents and teachers agreed with the idea of teachers monitoring food intake but not providing feedback on food brought to school, and that parents should decide what children eat.

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There were mixed views about who should be responsible for encouraging kids to eat healthy and who should decide and be able to comment on the contents of a child's lunchbox.

Deakin institute for physical activity and nutrition researcher Dr Claire Margerison said criticising individual children's lunchboxes was generally seen as being inappropriate among both parents and teachers.

However, the study illustrated most parents welcomed more general suggestions and feedback about what types of foods should be brought to school, for example, in the school newsletter.

Interestingly, a greater proportion of parents (44 per cent) than teachers (23 per cent) thought teachers should eat their lunch with the children.

"Children spend so much of their time at school, the lines between what is the parent's responsibility and what is the teacher's responsibility is often blurred and these research findings certainly highlight some of those grey areas," Dr Margerison said.

While there was conflicting ideas about who was responsible for what and whether teachers should eat lunch with students, the research overall found that giving children an extra five minutes would positively impact them by potentially increase their ability to focus on their learning.

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However, finding the time in the school day to allocate an additional five minutes would be challenging to fit into already tight curriculums.

"Obviously you want to give kids time to eat but you also have to be aware we've only got a certain amount of hours in the day," Mr Eddy said.

"I've been in schools that have had a shorter [eating] time, and it's a competitive market to try and fit everything into the day, with the pressures of the curriculum and play times, and things like that too.

"So I think that that's a challenge."

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