Study of Eating Breakfast and School Performance
One study that looked at the effectiveness of a school breakfast program appeared in a journal, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. In this study academic performance of three inner city public schools was studied before making school breakfast available for free before and after. Here are the facts of the study:
- Most of the students who attended these schools were African-American and from limited resource backgrounds.
- One school was in Philadelphia and two others were in Baltimore.
- The schools had a school breakfast program that charged a nominal amount, but the participation was low.
- Students invited to participate were in grades 3 through 8.
- The schools decided to make the breakfast available for free to increase participation rate.
- The researchers wanted to know if ready, writing, math skills, attendance, tardiness, behavior problems and the like were affected by whether one consumed a breakfast or not.
- Parent, teachers and students participated in the study in that interviews were conducted to determine behavior issues. It has long been known that malnutrition in children can affect brain development and learning. However, those studies looked at severe undernourishment. This study simply wanted to know if having a breakfast in otherwise apparently healthy children could make a difference?
What did they find out?
- For those student who participated in the program before the breakfast was made available for free, they had
- better math scores
- lower rates of tardiness
- lower absences school
- Other measures such as reading did not appear to change.
- Children who rarely ate breakfast were graded as more hyperactive than those who ate breakfast sometimes.
- The researchers also studied the same factors in these children after the breakfast program was made free.
- In those children who previously did not participate, but then joined when it was free, there was significant improvements in math scores, decrease tardiness and absences.
- Those who ate breakfast on a more regular basis demonstrated decreased hyperactivity. Another major finding was less anxiety and depression among children who consumed breakfast more regularly.
Conclusions and a word of caution
- This study and others have continued to support the notion that having a breakfast improves school performance.
- However, this study did have limitations. Do prove that breakfast did have an impact, the researchers would have to have some children who were on the breakfast program cease participation to determine if their math grades dropped. This presents ethical problems. Also, some of the improvements of some measures could be due to enhanced socialization and company that occurs when consuming a meal in a group setting.
Resources:
Murphy JM, Pagano ME, Nachmani J, Sperling P, Kane S, Kleinman RE. 1998. The relationship of school breakfast to psychosocial and academic functioning: cross-sectional and longitudinal observations in an inner-city school sample. Arch. Pediatr. Adolesc. Med. 152: 899-907