Are you hungry in the morning?
For more than 280,000 children in the Dallas area, hunger in the morning is a daily event. If they do receive breakfast, many are eating cereal high in sugar content, which makes them hyper in the morning and then have drops in their glucose level, making them sluggish and non-attentive.
We have all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The word breakfast means breaking a fasting period. When you sleep, your body is in a fasting mode and uses stored energy. You need to replenish spent energy with breakfast! If those reserves are not replenished, you may feel sluggish, irritable, and unfocused in the morning. This is known as “transient hunger” or short-term hunger. Breakfast that contains different types of nutrient rich foods will keep you going throughout the morning.
Dallas Independent School District (DISD) started a Breakfast in the Classroom, last fall. The program is having great success. Studies show students who eat breakfast have better classroom attention and concentration. They have fewer absences and visits to the nurse due to bellyaches. There are three methods of making breakfast conveniently accessible to students. Students may get breakfast from hallway kiosks as they enter school and take it to the classroom.
In the Grab and Go system, students grab their food from the cafeteria and take the meals to the classroom. In the third method, breakfast is delivered to the classrooms before the students arrive.
Eating a nutritious breakfast everyday is an important part of a student’s growth, both academically and physically. DISD Food & Child Nutrition Services is committed to seeing that students start the day ready to learn with breakfast. Breakfast in the Classroom Program provides free healthy and fun meals to all children in participating schools.
Church and community leaders are being asked to help spread the program in their community. Ask about breakfast in the classroom in your school.
For more information, you can click here or contact: Jennifer DeHoog at jdehoog@dallasisd.org.
Click here to download the DISD school lunch program list.
