Once we finally had the chance to take a deep breath and look around, National School Breakfast Week 2015 was over! We hope you enjoyed our NSBW 2015 coverage here at Beyond Breakfast—check out our archive for any stories you may have missed!
Speaking of stories missed, that’s what today’s blog post is all about—we’re featuring National School Breakfast Week campaigns, blogs, and articles that inspired us, and that we wouldn’t want you to miss.
Video: Healthy school breakfasts, lunches important in test-taking season
Fox 2 Now in St. Louis, Missouri, interviewed Rockwood School District Nutrition Supervisor Kristen Davis in this short news segment. Improved academic performance is just one of the many positive impacts school breakfast has on students, and test-staking season certainly highlights that aspect.
No Kid Hungry #PoweredByBreakfast
Our friends at No Kid Hungry are major school breakfast supporters, so we loved their #PoweredByBreakfast hashtag during National School Breakfast Week. In fact, we love all of No Kid Hungry’s images and infographics—these folks know how to tell a story, powerfully, with few words.
Action for Healthy Kids via National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN)
“Kids don’t eat breakfast for many reasons: they don’t like to eat when they first wake up, they don’t have time in the mornings, their bus arrives too late to visit the cafeteria, and those that qualify for free and reduced price meals don’t partake because of the stigma associated with eating breakfast at school. There is a way to combat all of these obstacles. When all children in a school are provided with the opportunity to participate in school breakfast, and it is moved out of the cafeteria school breakfast participation increases without fail.” –Ellen Dillon, Action for Healthy Kids, in a guest post for the NEA HIN blog.
Our passion for the breakfast-in-the-classroom model for school breakfast is rooted in many things, including one point Ellen made in ‘Kids Need Breakfast to Succeed’, excerpted above–when breakfast is moved out of the cafeteria and into the classroom, participation goes up without fail (emphasis ours). Breakfast-in-the-classroom means a late bus, or a missed alarm clock, doesn’t mean going hungry in the morning.
School Meals That Rock
“As a mom and a child nutrition expert, my mantra is simple. Breakfast. Every Child. Every Day. Research clearly shows that breakfast helps everyone be ready to succeed – and you probably make certain that your family enjoys these benefits every morning. I believe we all must go beyond our own families and support breakfast in every school – even if our kids eat at home.” –Dayle Hayes
In her post-National School Breakfast Week round-up, school nutrition consultant Dayle Hayes touches on an important point: even if your kids eat breakfast at home in the morning, not every child does—or can. In this post, Hayes gives the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom a shout-out (thanks, Dayle!) and urges readers to explore expert views on the power of school breakfast. When you present the facts about school breakfast, and its associated benefits—increased test scores, fewer behavioral problems, improved focus in the classroom—you give stakeholders the opportunity to understand the measurable results that come from feeding students a morning meal.