You might like this series of links from WrightsLaw, including an AAP policy position stating the vital importance of recess. Please note that it's written with an ADHD audience in mind, but I think it pertains to all children equally.

http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/?p=5338

The school needs to return to first principles and ask itself if it's truly fulfilling its mandate by endorsing policies that run counter to expert advice. This isn't a prison system for diminutive inmates, it's a place of learning, personal growth, self-expression, and creative thought. A policy of silence and withholding recess seems draconian and undermines the spirit of education.

Also, how is the policy expected to support the goal of teaching healthy living habits? Eat hurriedly, wrap up before you're physically capable of sensing satiety and then rest in a docile, semi-comatose state, or else your only physical and social outlet will be cut off. That's a recipe for creating a generation of maladjusted, basement-dwelling, obese teenagers. There's nothing like evidence-based practice, is there?

Excuse my sardonic tone. I clearly don't think your ire is misplaced.

What is to give light must endure burning.