New push on universal breakfast

Agriculture Secy. Dan Glickman joined 200 students at the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Philadelphia, for school breakfast, as part of the kickoff of National School Breakfast Week, last month.

At the same time, representatives of the American School Food Service Association (ASFSA), American Dietetic Association (ADA), National Dairy Council and the Kellogg Co., joined Harvard Medical School researchers at Walker Jones Elementary School, Washington, DC, for another such event.

Twin studies: The new research cited at both sites—a study conducted by Harvard Univ./Massachusetts General Hospital (see FSD March 15, "Commodities Alert" for details)—found that children in test cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore performed better academically if they usually ate breakfast.

They also experienced reduced hyperactivity, decreased absences and lateness, and improved psycho-social behaviors, compared with children who rarely eat school breakfast.

Tufts Univ. added its own 1998 findings on the link between nutrition and cognitive development: "Children who participated in the School Breakfast Program were shown to have significantly higher standardized test scores than eligible non-participants."

"What we've known for years—that eating breakfast before school has a profound impact on a child's ability to learn—has been confirmed by these new studies," Secretary Glickman points out.

"Busy parents need to know that their children can receive nutritious, tasty meals at school each morning," says Melinda Turner, ASFSA president, at the Walker Jones school event.

"Our findings show that it is possible to obtain large increases in school breakfast participation and that, when school breakfast participation rates go up, student outcome measures improve," according to Dr. J. Michael Murphy of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The kickoff: These School Breakfast Week gatherings kicked off a month-long series of other activities across the nation, including visits to schools by national, state and local leaders, as well as a mentoring program that paired older students with younger children, and food demos by professional chefs.

Separately, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles added his support to that of the Florida School Food Service Assn., to endorse the Meals for Achievement Act, which aims to make breakfast available to all elementary school children, free of charge.

Currently, about 7 million children eat school breakfast each day, compared with 25 million who take school lunch.