Children lose out on school breakfast

Children who eat breakfast work better, the study claims

Up to two million children in the United States are failing to benefit from a scheme which offers free or reduced-price breakfasts, research claims.

The school breakfast programme gives a free lunch and breakfast to children in homes with an annual income of $22,165 (approximately £15,426) or less and $31,543 (approximately £21,953) for a family of four.

But the Food Research and Action Centre (Frac) says that - while the number of children eating school breakfast has increased - 32 states are each ignoring at least 10,000 eligible children.

Children eating school breakfasts come to school on time, are less likely to be absent, learn more, and behave better

Jim Weill, president of Frac

California and New York were found to be the worst offenders, with more than 292,000 and 229,000 pupils respectively not getting daily breakfast as well as lunch.

The agency claims this shortfall means schools across the country are losing out on $320m in additional federal funds.

Children who ate breakfast, Frac claimed, had lower rates of absenteeism and irritability.

"More than two million children are being educationally shortchanged by getting every day off to a slow start," president of Frac, Jim Weill said.

"Children eating school breakfasts come to school on time, are less likely to be absent, learn more, and behave better," he added.

"States and schools that lag in breakfast are tying one hand behind their teachers' backs."

Participation up

But Frac's survey also found that a record number of schools - 71,000 - were taking part in the breakfast initiative.

The number of children who took part in the programme has nearly doubled in the last decade - in the school year 1999-2000, approximately 6.4m children, compared with 3.4m in 1990.

On average, 42% children who had a free or reduced-price school lunch were also having breakfast - the highest percentage ever.

Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia were found to be doing the best job in reaching out to low-income pupils.

In these states, 90-99% of those schools which served lunch also served breakfast.

They were found to have an average ratio of 55 free and reduced-price breakfasts per 100 free or reduced-price lunches - this compares to the ratio in Wisconsin, for example, which was as low as 23 per 100.

Nutritious meal

The programme was established by Congress in 1966 as a temporary measure.

It was given permanent approval in 1975 to help schools provide pupils with a nutritious morning meal.

The federal government reimburses schools for all or part of the cost of every meal, depending on the means of participating children's families.

More and more schools are serving free breakfasts to all their pupils because of the perceived positive effects for low-income and other children.