Free Breakfasts Raise Kids’ Grades

Children who ate free breakfasts at three inner-city schools in two U.S. cities had overall better attendance, higher grades and fewer emotional and disciplinary problems than before they participated in the meal program, researchers said. The report appeared in the September issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Assn. It was paid for partly by cereal maker Kellogg Co. and the Mid-Atlantic Milk Marketing Assn. of Towson, Md. The study involved 133 students at two schools in Baltimore and one in Philadelphia. The findings showed that those who ate the free breakfasts had overall higher math grades, fewer problems with depression, anxiety and hyperactivity and were tardy or absent less often than before the program started. “Higher rates of participation in school breakfast programs are associated in the short-term with improved student functioning on a broad range of psychosocial and academic measures,” the study said.