Healthy Breakfast Benefits Students

It’s not new news that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A healthy breakfast is your fuel for the day, enhances your energy, and provides your mind and body with the nutrients needed after a night of sleep. For children, there’s an added need for breakfast. More and more, research points to the fact that students who start their day with a healthy breakfast have more energy, perform better academically, and make healthier eating choices throughout the day.

It’s a simple fact — eating a healthy breakfast helps students do better in school. Here’s how:

1.  Students who eat breakfast show improved attendance, behaviour, and academic performance, as well as decreased tardiness.
2. Students who skip breakfast show increased errors and have slower memory recall.
3. Children who eat breakfast at school—closer to class and test-taking time—perform better on tests than those who skip breakfast.
4. Students who eat breakfast the morning of a test have significantly higher scores in spelling, reading, and math compared to those students who do not eat breakfast.
5. Student academic achievement increases, especially for math, when schools offer the School Breakfast Program.
6. Children and adolescents who skip breakfast tend to have poorer nutrient intakes than those who eat breakfast. Eating breakfast regularly has been linked with greater intake of fibre, calcium, iron, vitamin C, and other vitamins and minerals, and lower intake of fat, cholesterol, and sodium.
7. School breakfast has been linked with fewer visits to the clinic particularly in the morning.
8. Children and adolescents experiencing hunger have lower math scores and lower grades.
9. Children who eat breakfast show improved cognitive function, attention, and memory.
10. Eating a healthy breakfast helps students stay focused, energized, and healthy.

Whether participating in the school’s breakfast program, or serving up a healthy, well-balanced meal before school at home, the benefits of a healthy breakfast are undeniable.

Donate R600 and provide breakfast to a child for a year.