The Breakfast Initiative

breakfast in school

The Breakfast Initiative set out to answer important questions about an important meal. What is the best way to deliver a healthy school breakfast? And how does a healthy school breakfast impact key measures for children, including weight status and academic outcomes. The initiative worked in a large urban school district implementing a Breakfast in the Classroom program to evaluate the effect of this innovative school breakfast delivery model on attendance rates, test scores, and other measures. 

Following this research, the initiative produced and promoted The Breakfast Effect, a series of web-based videos to answer common questions around the impact of school breakfast, which have been viewed tens of thousands of times on YouTube and TeacherTube. The initiative also assembled a collection of resources to assist schools in implementing or expanding healthy school breakfast programs.

 

Explore more of our research related to school breakfast

Blondin S, Carmichael Djang H, Metayer N, Anzman-Frasca S, Christina Economos CD. “It’s just so much waste.” A qualitative investigation of food waste in a universal free School Breakfast Program. Public Health Nutrition. 2014.

Blondin SA, Anzman-Frasca S, Djang HC, Economos CD. Breakfast consumption and adiposity among children and adolescents: an updated review of the literature. Pediatr Obes. 2016; 11(5): 333-348.

Folta SC, Djang HC, Halmo M, Metayer N, Blondin S, Smith KS, Economos CD. School staff, parent, and student perceptions of a Breakfast in the Classroom model during initial implementation. Public Health Nutr. 2016; 19(9): 1696-1706.

Blondin SA, Cash S, Goldberg J, Griffin T, Economos CD. The nutritional, economic, and environmental costs of milk waste in a Breakfast in the Classroom School Breakfast Program. American Journal of Public Health. 2017; 107(4):590-592.

Blondin S, Goldberg JP, Griffin TS, Cash SB, Economos CD. Factors influencing fluid milk waste in a Breakfast in the Classroom School Breakfast Program. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2018 Feb 6; pii: S1499-4046(17): 31042-4.