Low-income children who eat breakfast do "significantly better" on standardized tests, but Utah ranks last in providing the federal school breakfast program.
"It's fairly routine for principals before standard achievement tests to send letters to parents encouraging them to make sure kids have a nutritional breakfast," said Michele Tingling-Clemmons, senior field worker in the Food Research and Action Center. "If they understand how important breakfast is for good performance on exam day, you can't tell me they don't understand the every-day link."Tingling-Clemmons presented ideas on expanding school breakfast programs at the Utah School Food Service Association Annual Conference in Salt Lake City Thursday.
The school breakfast program was designed to make sure that children from low-income families had nutritious breakfasts. Like the school lunch program on which it is patterned, all children can participate. The meals are available free, at reduced fee (up to 30 cents) or at regular price (about 49 cents, on average) depending on a family's income.
Less than half of the schools that offer lunch provide the breakfast program, but that number is increasing, Tingling-Clemmons said.
"We are seeing a great deal of expansion in the program as people realize the important relationship between nutrition and learning," she said. A Carnegie Foundation study said 68 percent of teachers found that undernourished children were a problem.
The numbers were about the same in Utah, where an estimated 51,000 children - about one in 9 - are undernourished.
Besides providing nutrition and improving a child's ability to learn, the school breakfast program brings tax dollars back into Utah from the federal government, suports the school system, provides jobs and helps families, Tingling-Clemmons said.