Listen To Your Mother: Breakfast is Important!
This guest blog is written by Etienne Melcher with the Food Research and Action Center. This blog is part of our week-long celebration for National School Breakfast Week.
Growing up, I remember my mother, an educator, telling me ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day.’ And as a kid, sometimes I brushed her off, not thinking too much of it. But like many kids who think they know better, I was wrong and my mother was right. And in this case (and probably many others), the research backs her up.
Kids who eat breakfast see an increase in their math and reading scores; improve their speed and memory in cognitive tests; and perform better on standardized tests than those who skip breakfast or eat at home. And those are just some of the educational benefits. I haven’t even mentioned the countless health benefits.
Yet, there are many children who don’t eat breakfast every day for a number of reasons. Low-income parents can’t afford enough food, there’s still stigma attached to eating breakfast in the cafeteria, and late buses mean children arrive as breakfast is ending — just to name a few.
Thankfully, there is a diverse group of stakeholders, including educators (like my mother), school nutrition professionals, school administrators, anti-hunger and health advocates, USDA, elected officials, and — of course – parents, working tirelessly to break down those barriers to ensure that all children have access to the most important meal of the day. One group that’s leading the charge is the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom, of which the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is a proud member.
All of these groups have zeroed in on what works, and that’s getting breakfast service out of the cafeteria and making breakfast part of the school day. They are using alternative breakfast service strategies, like breakfast in the classroom, which removes many of the barriers preventing students from participating in school breakfast.
These efforts are delivering results. According to FRAC’s recently released School BreakfastScorecard and School Breakfast —Making it Work in Large Districts, 320,000 more children participated in the School Breakfast Program in the 2013-2014 school year—that’s a 2.9 percent increase from the previous school year—with a total of 11.2 million low-income children participating.
While it can be daunting to create and implement a new system in your school, there are initiatives in place to help interested schools. For example, the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom (PBIC) — a consortium of Food Research and Action Center, National Education Health Information Network (NEA-HIN), School Nutrition Foundation and the National Association of School Principals — provide grants and technical assistance to high need districts in target states to expand participation through building out breakfast in the classroom programs.
So if you’re looking for a way to improve academic achievement in your schools, we have the solutions and resources that will ensure your success. School breakfast is a win-win for everyone. It eliminates hunger, reduces childhood obesity and provides the ingredients necessary to allow children to reach their full potential. Just ask my mom — she is always right.
Posted by Etienne Melcher
on March 5, 2015