Feed kids breakfast, they do better in school
School is starting, and a nutritious breakfast is a great way to start the day. Are your kids ready? Is your school?
As a teacher, I regularly witness how missing breakfast can affect my students, leading to scenarios like this:
A seventh grader comes up to me holding his stomach and states, “Mrs. Oswald, I don’t feel good.”
I ask, “Did you eat breakfast this morning?”
Hungrily eyeing the banana on my desk, my student replies, “No.”
As I hand over the banana (or whatever my mid-morning snack was to be), I know that while I may get a little hungry before lunch, my students cannot learn and be their best without breakfast.
Most people have heard the phrase, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is especially true for children. A wide range of studies have found that students who eat breakfast have increased attention spans and show decreased levels of frustration in school. Eating breakfast has also been shown to improve cognitive function and memory, increasing student performance on math, vocabulary, and other demanding mental tasks. Eating breakfast has even been linked with fewer morning visits to the school nurse.
But Wisconsin ranks last in participation in the national School Breakfast Program — 51st out of 51 states (including the District of Columbia). According to the Food Research and Action Center’s 2018 School Breakfast Scorecard, a report on the 2016-17 school year, only 81.3% of Wisconsin schools that offered lunch, offered breakfast as well. And only 51.7% of students who participated in the free and reduced-price National School Lunch Program participated in the School Breakfast Program. Additionally, a 2018 Feeding America report found that 16% of Wisconsin’s children are food insecure, which means they do not consistently have access to enough food to be active and healthy.
Food insecurity is just one of many breakfast barriers. Early morning bus pick-ups, late-sleeping adolescents, before-school clubs or practices, even an unexpectedly empty jug of milk or box of cereal can cause students to start the day with an empty stomach.
What can you do? Include nutritious, easy-to-prepare breakfast foods on your grocery list. Allow an extra 10 minutes in the morning for breakfast at home. Have grab-and-go foods handy for rushed mornings or days when your kids may not be hungry right away. Check to see if your local district participates in the School Breakfast Program by visiting the Department of Public Instruction’s website at dpi.wi.gov/wisconsin-schoolmeals-rock/school-breakfast. If they do, encourage your kids and their friends to participate so they can start the day ready to learn. If your school or district doesn’t currently offer breakfast, talk with the food service director or school principal to see if they could pilot a Breakfast in the Classroom program, grab-and-go, or traditional before school breakfast.
Knowing the benefits of a good breakfast, I’m glad my district will begin participating in the national School Breakfast Program this school year.
Beth A. Oswald of Milton teaches world history at J. C. McKenna Middle School in the Evansville Community School District.