Child Nutrition Reauthorization
Priority

Provide Funds for a Grant Program to Support Universal and In-Classroom School Breakfast Programs

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The School Breakfast Program is available in 86 percent of schools across the country, providing millions of children a much needed nutritious meal so they start the school day ready to learn. The program provides low-income children with free or substantially reduced-price breakfasts that offer one-fourth or more of the key nutrients they need each day. Eight and a half million low-income students participate daily, yet the program serves less than half of the eligible children who eat lunch at school. As a result, many low-income children are arriving at school unable to achieve their full potential, because they have not eaten a nutritious morning meal. When children do eat school breakfast, it reduces hunger and improves nutrition, and it also improves students’ achievement, test scores, attentiveness, and attendance, and reduces discipline problems in school.

Despite the positive student outcomes, participation remains too low. This is because traditional school breakfast misses too many children. Experience has shown that the time and place of meal service (often the cafeteria before class starts) and the payment system (usually means-tested, creating stigma) can reduce participation, especially among low-income children and middle- and high school students. Bus schedules, parents’ schedules, children’s desire to socialize on the playground, even slowdowns in lines at school security, all mean that too many children miss breakfast at home and at school.

Child nutrition reauthorization should support schools with many low-income students in offering breakfast free to all students (“universal breakfast”) and offering breakfast in the classroom (breakfast is brought from the kitchen in containers that keep dishes at the right temperature hot or cold, or picked up from carts in the hallways as children enter class). A grant program should be created to provide funds to schools that serve many low-income children to implement these breakfast programs to maximize participation. Usually this requires only a modest investment in each school to purchase small equipment and to pay for additional staff to provide temporary support to help with program implementation. These small investments would yield significant benefits as many more children participate and increased federal funds are captured by the school to support the program.

Congress should provide funds for a grant program to support the start-up and expansion of universal and in-classroom school breakfast programs in order to:

• Help struggling families. School breakfast is a critical support to struggling families, ensuring that children receive a significant portion of the nutrition their bodies need at school, and helping families to stretch limited resources.

• Improve educational outcomes. At a time when schools are expected to raise their students’ academic performance and test scores, making sure every child has had the opportunity to eat a healthy breakfast is an important but often overlooked tool. Researchers report that children who skip breakfast are less able to master the tasks necessary to do well in school.

• Improve child health. Children and adolescents who eat breakfast are significantly less likely to be overweight, while skipping breakfast is associated with a higher risk of obesity. And school breakfast improves children’s diets. USDA research shows that children who participate in school breakfast eat more fruits, drink more milk, and eat a wider variety of foods than those who do not eat school breakfast or who have breakfast at home.

• Eliminate stigma. Offering breakfast free to all children—especially in the classroom—eliminates the perception that school breakfast is “only for poor children,” which can block participation by even some of the neediest children. This perception exists in part because not all children are in the cafeteria at breakfast time when it is served before the beginning of the school day.

• Strengthen school nutrition programs. Schools that serve large numbers of low-income children can significantly improve their financial viability by reaching more children with school breakfast. Funding to assist with start-up costs, which can often be a barrier to implementing classroom breakfast programs, is a solid investment and will provide long term financial stability for school nutrition programs.