Benefits of Breakfast

Your mother was right: breakfast really can make or break your day. Unfortunately, all-nighters are becoming the norm now for stressed out students balancing AP classes, extracurricular activities, and more; ten extra minutes snuggled up in bed sounds far more enticing than a bowl of cereal. However, studies have proven that a good, healthy breakfast is critical to a growing teen’s health and academic development. In an endeavor to aid struggling students, many states are sponsoring school breakfast programs that supply nutritious morning meals to busy students.

The School Breakfast Program is a federally sponsored program that began in 1966 as a pilot project to assist “nutritionally needy” students that were not getting the sustenance that needed to perform to the best of their abilities in class. Today schools across the country have implemented this program, offering healthy and traditional menus low in sodium and fat and high in vitamins. Because the program helps pay for the breakfasts, these meals are served at a reduced price and are basically the equivalent of having a morning lunch in the cafeteria or classroom before the school day begins.

In Colorado, where only 38% of students who eat lunch also eat breakfast, the state instituted a Breakfast Challenge. This was to encourage schools to increase participation rates as the school with the greatest increases could win cash prizes of up to $5000. In the Pueblo school district, free breakfasts are now available for every student of every age level and test scores and attendance have improved dramatically across the board. This methodology is spreading quickly around the area.

What about New Jersey? The Garden State is ranked 49th in the nation for Breakfast Program participation. The state fails to reach sixty of every hundred students requiring financial aid, so $19 million in federal funding has been lost. Governor Christie has proposed cutting $5.5 million from the state Breakfast Program to save on the budget, a move that may defer interest in schools not yet participating or limit options of currently active schools.

Because a healthy breakfast can reduce hunger all day long, a student is often more alert, vigorous, and focused. In a survey by the American Dietetic Association, half of all boys and two-thirds of all girls skip breakfast on a regular basis. While some local elementary schools, like those in Piscataway and Edison, offer breakfast programs, many of our high schools do not. They do, however, roll out the racks of snacks the minute bleary-eyed students walk through the doors. A bite to eat is important, but not if it’s loaded with sugar and empty calories.  It’s pretty obvious we all want a way to make ourselves more attentive and better our test grades in class and a simple way to achieve this is to add a healthy mix of dairy, grains, and fruits into our morning schedules. Whether we can commit to this effort through available school programs or through sheer willpower is up to us. On the other hand, no one disagrees that we should at least try. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day!