School Cafeterias and Low Vision

Sometime around sixth grade, I came to the conclusion that the combination of school cafeterias and low vision contributed to a great deal of frustration for me at school. Other than the school gym, the cafeteria was one of the places at school where I felt my visual impairment was the most obvious because I didn’t have access to so many of the visual cues that my classmates were using. Some of the barriers I encountered as a visually impaired student in the cafeteria became easier to deal with as I got older and learned how to live with low vision, while others continued to exist or became a problem later on that I had to brainstorm solutions for.

Here is a list of ways that visual impairment (inclusive of blind/low vision/CVI) can contribute to frustration or accessibility barriers in the school cafeteria environment, and strategies that I used during school lunch periods as a student with low vision.

Visual reasons why cafeterias can be overwhelming for visually impaired students

Blind students and students with low vision may find school cafeterias to be overwhelming due to visual characteristics of the environment. This doesn’t mean that students should be sheltered from going to the cafeteria or that all students will dislike it, but it helps to acknowledge what makes the environment inaccessible or overwhelming when working to come up with solutions.

Glare from lights/windows

Glare from overhead lights or windows can reflect off of tables or floors and make it difficult for students to see their surroundings or locate items if there is light bouncing in multiple directions. Alternatively, bright or flashing lights can become disorienting after a period of time for students with light sensitivity or photophobia, especially if someone flickers the lights suddenly or if there are lights in need of repair.

Finding an open seat is challenging

Most cafeteria seats don’t have a back to them, and it can be challenging to judge the amount of open space next to a person when the seat is not visible. I would have to walk right next to a table to figure out if a seat was open, which could be awkward around students I didn’t know, so I would try to look for seats on the edge of tables. Another time, my friend invited me to “share a seat” with them so we could sit together, and I misjudged the amount of space and fell onto the floor. My friend didn’t make me feel embarrassed (you’re amazing, S!), but I was frustrated that I hadn’t been able to find them sooner.

Locating friends is challenging too

During an afternoon class, a new friend invited me to sit with them at lunch the next day. I hadn’t seen this person since the day before, so I couldn’t use things like their hairstyle or clothing to locate them, and picking their face out of a crowd would be impossible for me with low vision. I would sometimes walk up to other students mistaking them for others or spend a lot of time wandering around trying to locate someone.

Lots of visual stimuli

Whether it’s seeing the door open/close, noticing movement in the hallway, or just students and staff wandering around the cafeteria, students with visual impairments may get distracted by the sight or sounds of things moving around, even if they can’t see them very clearly. Trying to figure out a clear walking path can also be challenging if there are lots of items on the ground like backpacks, or a crowd of students. Patterned tables can also make it more challenging for students to notice spills or messes that either they or another student made.

Cafeterias have fewer visual landmarks

While the inside of a cafeteria is a busy place, there are fewer visual landmarks in the form of painted walls, colored objects, or other items that a student with low vision may use to help them with navigation or orienting themselves to the environment. One school I attended had several visual landmarks such as a trophy case, large windows, an exposed brick wall, and posters/murals throughout the space that I would use to locate different areas, while another school had a windowless white space where all of the walls looked the same with light colored tables and white floors throughout.

Difficult to identify food items

What’s on the school lunch menu today? What’s behind the glass in the food serving area? These questions can be difficult to answer with low vision, and some students may end up getting served a food item they don’t want or like, or have no idea what it is. Learning to locate an accessible menu or food labels, as well as asking questions about food items can help to mitigate this, but it’s still frustrating when it happens.

Obstacles may go undetected

It can be challenging for someone with low vision to notice something spilled on the floor/table, or spot items outside of their field of vision. For me, this manifested as sitting in a wet seat by mistake, running into the trash can while trying to navigate a crowded area, or getting caught in the crossfire when a food fight broke out.

Related links

• Lighting And Low Vision
• Flashing Lights and Photosensitivity in the Classroom
• High School Hallways and Low Vision
• How I Use My Phone As Assistive Technology In Class
• Reduce Glare In The Classroom For Low Vision Students
• Two of Everything: Living With Double Vision

Non-visual reasons why cafeterias can be overwhelming for visually impaired students

Blind students and students with low vision can also be overwhelmed by the cafeteria for reasons that might not obviously relate to their vision, such as sounds, smells, and textures. These stimuli can still affect someone’s ability to navigate a highly visual environment, especially if the student has cortical visual impairment (CVI) or another neurological condition that is influenced by multiple factors. In my case, I have low vision as the result of an eye condition and a brain/neurological condition that wasn’t diagnosed until I was in college.

Hunger can make it harder to focus eyes

Students who are hungry or otherwise distracted may find it harder to focus their eyes or concentrate on visual tasks like going through the lunch line or finding friends. This can be true for students with additional disabilities or chronic illnesses, but even students with “stable” vision may experience fluctuations that make it harder to navigate in the environment.

Everyone is talking

School cafeterias often don’t have great acoustics, and the sound of dozens or hundreds of students talking can be challenging enough as is. Students may have to speak louder to hear their friends above the noise, which can lead to students talking louder and louder throughout the lunch period to hear what others are saying.

Environmental noise can be distracting

Students who experience sensory processing issues may be easily distracted by other school cafeteria noises like the dish return, trash cans moving across the walkways, doors opening/closing, trays clinking together, or announcements/bells. This can make it difficult to focus on a lot of things, including eating.

Smells can make it hard to concentrate too

Another potential distraction can be the smells of multiple foods, which can distract students from visual tasks like locating or identifying food items. This isn’t so much the smell of a single food, as much as it is having several competing sensory inputs at once.

Short lunch periods leave limited time to eat

All of my school lunch periods were 30 minutes or less, which included having students walk to the cafeteria, grab food, sit down, eat, and clean up. If a student had trouble finding a place to sit or didn’t get through the line quickly, they had less time to eat or would be disciplined for taking too long. Many of these tasks are highly visual in nature, and students with visual impairments may move more slowly than others as they try to make sense of their surroundings.

Chairs and seats can be uncomfortable

Some students may find the chairs and seats in the cafeteria to be uncomfortable, which can exacerbate existing frustration with sensory overload or fatigue. Some areas may also be in a particularly hot or cold area, which can make it challenging for students with temperature regulation issues as well.

Fatigue levels can become more obvious

Many people think of the cafeteria as a place to socialize, relax, and eat with friends, but having so many things happening in one place can make it more difficult to do any of these things. Instead of thinking of the cafeteria as an opportunity for a vision break or a brain break, I often left feeling very anxious or nervous because I had to rely on my vision so much to navigate in a bright, loud environment, or was constantly trying to mask my visual impairment and avoid falling or embarrassing myself.

Related links

• How I Explain My Brain With Chiari Malformation
• Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
• How I Talk About Disability With New Friends
• Activity Ideas For Vision Breaks
• Falling Down (With Style): College O&M
• Ten Lessons My TVI Taught Me

Ways I compensated for feeling overwhelmed in the school cafeteria

As a student with low vision and a then-undiagnosed neurological condition, I often felt pressured to mask my disability or try to fit in with other students who seemed to not be bothered by the school cafeteria. To be clear, I am not endorsing any of these ideas as good solutions, but here are some ways that my frustration with navigating the cafeteria manifested from a behavior perspective

Not eating much or eating without permission later in the day

Since it was hard for me to focus on eating or I wouldn’t feel hungry at lunch because there was so many other things going on, there were phases where I wouldn’t eat anything for lunch or would only have a few snacks. When I got hungry later in the day, I would try to eat without permission or come home from school and immediately want to eat because these environments were quieter and less chaotic.

Finding any excuse to be somewhere else

Because the cafeteria was so busy, I welcomed any opportunity to eat or hang out somewhere else during lunch periods. Sometimes I would go in the hallway and hope hall monitors didn’t see me or go visit another teacher/staff member. There was another phase where I would spend time inside or around a bathroom, usually one that was located in a less busy part of the school, not because I was antisocial but because I didn’t know where to find any of my friends in my assigned lunch period and didn’t want to walk all the way to the cafeteria.

A friend I met years later told me that one of their favorite “tricks” was to get lunch detention so that they didn’t have to be in the cafeteria, and welcomed the opportunity to eat in mostly silence.

Avoiding the lunch line or crowded areas

Allegedly, one of the high schools I attended serves a great taco salad, but I never tried it because I avoided the lunch line and crowded areas in the cafeteria as much as possible. I was worried about running into people or obstacles and spilling food on myself, so I would bring my lunch from home.

Not throwing out trash

Since getting up to go find a trash can or go to the dish return was challenging, especially towards the end of lunch when everyone was getting ready to leave, I would just leave the trash/empty containers in my lunch bag and throw them out when I got home. Alternatively, I would pack zero-waste lunches or store items in reusable containers to eliminate packaging.

Eating alone out of frustration

I’m very privileged to have had multiple friends at school, but it wasn’t always easy for me to locate them, especially when I had the first lunch block in high school and went straight from second period to lunch, instead of meeting with friends at third period (lunch blocks were assigned based on a student’s third period class). I knew that my friends were in the cafeteria somewhere but felt overwhelmed trying to find them. There were times I would eat alone not because I wanted to, but because I had no idea where anyone was. This usually happened during the first few weeks of a new semester or school year.

Related links

• Organizing A Dorm Mini Fridge With Low Vision
• 10 Ways College Is Better Than High School For Disabled Students
• How I Talk About Disability With New Friends
• Clothing Shopping Tips For Sensory Processing Issues

Accommodation and modification ideas for school cafeterias and low vision

What options are there for a visually impaired student who hates the cafeteria? On one hand, it’s important for students to practice independent navigation skills and learn how to get through crowded, loud environments, but eventually there may come a point where the student is totally burnt out and needs to find another solution for minimizing cafeteria chaos. Here are some accommodation and modification ideas that were implemented informally in my school disability accommodations, including a Student Assistance Plan (SAP), 504 plan, and IEP. My guidance counselor at each school was responsible for helping to implement these strategies and solutions.

Eat in another classroom

I met with my middle school guidance counselor to vent about how much I disliked the cafeteria, and one of the solutions we agreed on was having me eat lunch in an approved teacher’s classroom when they had a free period, along with a small group of friends. This instantly solved a lot of problems and I was glad to have the social outlet, and never felt “left out” because I still had my friends with me, who were all thrilled to get out of sitting in the cafeteria. No one else ever said anything about the fact I wasn’t eating in the cafeteria.

Sometimes I ate lunch in a familiar teacher’s classroom (like the band or orchestra room), while other times a different teacher offered to let me sit in their classroom even if I wasn’t their student— my guidance counselor let me know which classrooms I was allowed to go to. Of course, if I wanted to, I was still allowed to go to the cafeteria, but this was a decision I would make for myself and not one that someone else would make for me.

Learning the cafeteria layout

Learning the cafeteria layout and visual landmarks was helpful, because I could locate quiet areas or common places where my friends would sit. At one school I attended, I would use a painted mural on the wall to orient myself, while at another I learned to recognize where the staff monitors would stand and use their position to orient myself.

Walk with friends to the cafeteria

One of the schools I attended had a more open cafeteria area that was quieter, but it was larger and made it more difficult for me to locate friends, especially since students often sat at different tables or locations each day. One of my friends and I would meet outside of the cafeteria and walk together to a seat so I wasn’t scrambling to find them later, or I would meet someone in the hallway before leaving if we were in the same class.

Arrive and leave during off-peak times

Since hallways can be challenging to navigate, my teachers would let me leave for lunch a few minutes early so I could find a seat. In high school, I often left at the “senior lunch” time and would walk with an older friend, which was less crowded. I would also leave the cafeteria a few minutes early with a friend so I had time to walk to the next class before the crowds came in.

Find other seating options

After mentioning that I found the round cafeteria seats super uncomfortable, one of my friends found another cafeteria seating area that had seats with a back, which was more comfortable to sit in. The chairs were also brightly colored and easier to locate than the previous seating area we used.

Related links

• How My Guidance Counselor Helped Me As A Low Vision Student
• Quiet Places At School For Students With Visual Impairments
• Learning to Self-Advocate
• Dear High School Teacher
• Dear Middle School Teacher
• Disability and Classroom Accommodations For Chiari Malformation
• Disability and Classroom Accommodations For POTS
• How To Explain Disability Accommodations To Professors

More thoughts on school cafeterias and low vision

• I didn’t start using a blindness cane or other mobility aids until I was in college and didn’t interact with a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) until high school. If I had access to one or both of these valuable resources sooner, I’m sure I would have been more independent in navigating the cafeteria!
• College dining halls were a lot easier for me to navigate than cafeterias for a few reasons, including the fact I could check menus on my phone/enlarge menus, I wasn’t standing in lines most of the time for food, I was able to text friends to figure out where they were, the space was larger, and I didn’t have to go to the dining hall at a set time or enter/leave at the same time as hundreds of other students. Learn more about dining hall access in Navigating The Dining Hall: College O&M
• Looking for more visual impairment resources? Check out a list of post categories at Veronica With Four Eyes Categories (veroniiiica.com)

Published October 11, 2023. Updated January 2025