The Relationship of School Breakfast to Psychosocial and Academic Functioning

Abstract

To determine if a relationship exists between participation in a school breakfast program and measures of psychosocial and academic functioning in school-aged children.Methods: Information on participation in a school breakfast program, school record data, and in-depth interviews with parents and children were collected in 1 public school in Philadelphia, Pa, and 2 public schools in Baltimore, Md, prior to the implementation of a universally free (UF) breakfast program and again after the program had been in place for 4 months. One hundred thirtythree low-income students had complete data before and after the UF breakfast program on school breakfast participation and school-recorded measures, and 85 of these students had complete psychosocial interview data before and after the UF breakfast program. Teacher ratings of behavior before and after the UF breakfast program were available for 76 of these students.Results: Schoolwide data showed that prior to the UF breakfast program, 240 (15%) of the 1627 students in the 3 schools were eating a school-supplied breakfast each day. Of the 133 students in the interview sample, 24 (18%) of the students ate a school-supplied breakfast often, 26 (20%) ate a school-supplied breakfast sometimes, and 83 (62%) ate a school-supplied breakfast rarely or never. Prior to the UF breakfast program, students who ate a school-Conclusion: Both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from this study provide strong evidence that higher rates of participation in school breakfast programs are associated in the short-term with improved student functioning on a broad range of psychosocial and academic measures.

Fresh Start: a model for success and sustainable change

“…OFSTED (2002b) The breakfast club provides one of the few opportunities to convey the school's effective discipline policy in practice to both parents and pupils simultaneously while offering parents the chance to learn from good practice in an informal environment rather than the more formal route of 'Parenting Classes'. Discipline has not been an issue at the breakfast club in the case study school, which supports Murphy et al (1998) findings that there were significantly fewer behavioural and emotional problems associated with the introduction of a free breakfast programme in many schools.…”

“…Staff at the case study school noticed that levels of concentration dipped during the morning sessions affecting children's work. In an effort to combat this fatigue and improve learning, timetabling of SFA has been rescheduled to the first period supporting Murphy et al (1998) findings. 100% of the staff felt the breakfast club helped improve children's concentration in the morning.…”

“…They also found that it opens up curriculum opportunities by integrating school breakfast and nutrition education into their curriculum in home economics, health education, and physical education (Murphy et al 1998) Some of the larger research projects carried out in the USA have involved medical, educational and commercial contributions, which might raise questions about their legitimacy. However, research in the UK, although less extensive, supports many of the findings of USA studies.…”

Evaluation of a kindergarten-based nutrition education intervention for pre-school children in China

“…Parents and kindergarten teachers play key roles in helping pre-schoolers to develop positive dietary behaviours (11,12) . The existing literature provides educators with excellent tools and examples of nutrition education programmes for children of pre-school age (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) . However, few reports have been published on the nutrition education of pre-school children in China, where economic expansion and population increase have occurred rapidly within the last two to three decades.…”

Context Learning and the Effect of Context on Memory Retrieval in Lymnaea

“…Many different factors affect the ability to learn, to consolidate that learning into memory, and to allow the memory to be retrieved. Thus, for example, stress (de Quervain et al 2000), inattention (Rees et al 1999), and hunger (Murphy et al 1998;Powell et al 1998) may negatively affect our ability to learn, form the memory, and retrieve the memory. But how such factors do so at the neuronal level is not understood (Martin et al 1997).…”