As college students it can be hard to make sure that we always get three full meals a day, between classes, homework, jobs and a personal life, oftentimes one meal has to get cut, and for a fair amount of us it ends up being breakfast.

The NC State Dining schedule lists the breakfast hours as from the time that the individual venue opens, until 10:30 a.m. Dining halls at NC State open at 7 a.m.

However, for a lot of students this time period isn’t easily made; some have classes around 10 a.m., some want to go to the gym in the morning, and many don’t have classes in the morning but would love to sleep in just a little bit longer. As it stands, NC State Dining already incorporates a half-hour transition period between breakfast and early lunch at dining halls. Officially moving the time when NC State switches from breakfast to early lunch from 10:30 am to 11 a.m. and moving back this transition time would help treat these problems, makes logistical sense, and would have several other redeeming qualities for the students of NC State.

Just for a little context, NC State Dining has no trouble with adjusting to become better. As of just the 2017-18 academic year, NC State dining has divided lunch into two new periods: early lunch and late lunch. This change has been great and makes a lot of sense, since students have a lot of classes around lunchtime and two periods increases flexibility for students to spend their meal credits.

But this year’s change also shows how lunch is given a large amount of time by NC State Dining. With two consecutive periods lasting from 10:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., lunch is the longest meal of the day at six hours, while breakfast only gets three and a half.

Having this shorter breakfast time makes it logistically harder for students to spend their meal credits. Since students can only use one meal swipe per period at food courts, having to skip breakfast because of the short time additionally means missing out on part of a meal plan that has already been paid for.

With the first half of those three and a half hours being significantly early in the morning, the time for which a student can reasonably make it to breakfast at a dining hall is a fraction of what it is for lunch. Breakfast deserves at least another half hour to balance the scales a little. Obviously lunch needs to be the longest, but having it be the longest by so much is excessive.

Beyond pure logistics, expanding breakfast benefits those with dietary restrictions. Several diets and religious practices like Islamic halal and Jewish kosher prohibit the consumption of pork and other meats and many rely on eggs as a source of protein instead. Increasing the span of the breakfast period could allow students with these constraints to have more reliable access to the nutrients they need since eggs are served by the dining halls every morning.

Of course, this isn’t to say that NC State Dining doesn’t try to make sure that dietary needs are followed. Quite the opposite, NC State Dining puts a large effort into accommodating its vegetarian, vegan and religious students for each meal. But other than the bean burger and salad bar, it can be difficult to find a consistent source of acceptable food. However, with breakfast being nearly identical from day to day, expanding it would add both consistency and more options to the lives of those with special dietary needs.

Lastly, and most importantly, breakfast has colloquially been considered the “most important meal of the day,” and not without good reason. According to Rush University Medical Center, breakfast can help start your metabolism in the morning and helps individuals burn more calories during the day. Additionally, those who eat breakfast have even been seen to lose weight better.

NC State Dining puts a lot of effort into the health of students, they could take it a step further by making sure more of them eat breakfast. This is even more pressing considering that a study by NPD, a market research company, found that men ages 18-34 skip breakfast 28 percent of the time and that women of the same age skip 18 percent of the time. Those age groups were the most likely of the study to skip breakfast (men 35-54 actually tied with women 18-34) and easily the closest to college-aged students.

This change really isn’t that burdensome for the NC State Dining staff, but it would mean a lot to the student body through the logistical, dietary and health benefits a more easily accessible breakfast would provide. NC State Dining has shown in the past their willingness and drive to ensure that the student body is presented with plenty of healthy and accommodating options and it is for those same reasons that dining should seriously consider this alteration and the wide ranging positive effects it would have on the student body.