Yes, meal times for kids in school are also poorly structured, often dictated by over-crowded facilities that can't hold enough people to let everyone eat at a normal lunch time. My kids' school starts at 8:50 am, but one of them has lunch 11:00 a.m. with 4 hours afterwards during which they can't eat. We let him bring a snack and tell him to let his teacher know his parents gave him permission to eat, and they should contact us if there's a problem. Though last year he also had a teacher who recognized the problem and had an unofficial "snack time". Plenty of teachers are not arbitrary & capricious in their rule making.

Although it might make sense to do some research about all this snacking all the time. It seems that while in the 50ies people ate 2-3 times a day nowadays its more like 6-8 times a day and we have a huge epidemic of obesity and diabetes.

4 hours without food seems very short, it only would be a problem if the main food source would be fast carbs which let the blood sugar drop very quickly afterwards.

I'm 5'7" and 130lbs (so not fat) and I definitely can't go four hours between meals. I get very angry.

>> I get very angry

Freudian slip?

This is a phenomena common enough to have its own word: hangry

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hangry

..and I just learned the word is over a century old, it's definitely not new slang.

being hungry can make you grumpy

You should eat 6-8 times a day but smaller meals to prevent obesity. You should also avoid carbs in a majority of your meals and added sugars in all meals. Stick to healthy fats and the obesity problem reduces to none.

Obesity comes from ultimately consuming more calories than calories exerted. Your body learns (maybe this is the wrong word) to store fats when there are long periods of time without eating

I strongly disagree with the 6-8 times, my strategy is one meal a day and it seems to work much better for me.

I strongly agree with the avoiding carbs and sticking to healthy fats and that it reduces the obesity problem to none.

I definitely agree that obesity comes from consuming more calories that exerting.

I strongly disagree that fat gets stored when you don't eat for a longer time. The exact opposite is the case, nothing can be stored when you don't eat. When you rise blood sugar the body releases insulin which is the fat storage hormone. So the less often you do it the less fat gets stored.