A pilot program looking at ways to get more kids to eat school breakfast has confirmed what many might suspect: It helps to serve it after the start of the school day.
The initial Breakfast After the Bell Challenge increased the number of students eating school breakfasts by at least 20 percent in nine of the 11 participating schools, according to those behind the campaign. The results prove that the timing of breakfast and its delivery can discourage student participation, according to Anore Horton, the nutrition initiatives director at Hunger Free Vermont.
Hunger Free Vermont and the New England Dairy & Food Council — an industry-funded nutrition education nonprofit — created the program.
“It also shows that different strategies to move breakfast after the bell can work to increase participation,” Horton said. “The most effective strategy at the elementary school level is to provide breakfast in the classroom and make it universal — meaning no student is charged for breakfast. That combination of strategies led to the highest participation increase.”
In Vermont, 98 percent of schools offer breakfast, according to Hunger Free Vermont, which says about 45 percent of children who qualify for free meals — and 25 percent of all students — take advantage of it.
Horton said the campaign compared participation in March 2015 and the same month this year in schools that changed the way they served breakfast during the trial period of January through April.
Pownal Elementary had the largest increase — 171 percent — with nearly 85 percent of all students getting breakfast. Winooski High School and Middle School offered a grab-and-go meal between the first and second classes of the day and improved student participation by 56 percent from last year, with 75 percent getting a morning meal during March this year, organizers said.
John F. Kennedy School, also in Winooski, saw an identical increase in participation by offering breakfast in the classroom.
Schools that took part didn’t incur any additional costs, according to Horton. All the schools used federal money from the USDA meals program to pay for the food, and the New England Dairy & Food Council gave them grants to purchase any new equipment needed to deliver meals outside of a cafeteria.
The other schools that saw significantly more students eating breakfast were Thatcher Brook Primary School in Waterbury; St. Monica-St. Michael School in Barre; Molly Stark Elementary in Bennington; Pownal Elementary; Coventry Village School; and Elm Hill School in Springfield.
