PA NEN School Breakfast Summary

Steve Gauvry, PA NEN

As discussed in an article in the winter newsletter, the Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Network (PA NEN), while promoting nutrition education, wanted also to promote increased school breakfast participation. Using the data provided by the Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Program (PA NEP), the Network identified schools with a 50 percent or higher free- and reduced-lunch eligibility that had low-participation breakfast programs.

Five school districts—Altoona, Bloomsburg, Bristol Township, Brownsville and Williamsport—participated in the program that evaluated fifteen schools between January and March. Some of the schools offered only indirect instruction along with taste-testings while other schools offered both indirect and direct instruction along with taste-testings. In all, 6,438 students received Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE) in one form or another, and of that number, 4,870 actually received direct instruction. PA NEN identified 58.7 percent of the students as the target population.

Since most of the schools ran a series of taste-testings and instruction, PA NEN developed 23,811 contacts through this program. As the program was funded by PA NEP for a total cost of $13,200.57, it cost just $0.55 per student to receive taste-testings and nutrition education!

As a result of this program and in addition to the nutrition education programming, PA NEN had hoped for an increase in school breakfast participation. Ultimately, only the Altoona school district saw substantial increases. Within a month of initiating the program they saw their breakfast participation increase from 280 to 630 students per day!

Although the results do not indicate why only one school district showed a significant increase in breakfasts while the others remained consistent to their pre-intervention numbers, PA NEN remains hopeful that future endeavors will increase the number of participants.

Programs such as PA NEN’s School Breakfast Pilot are desperately needed in communities across the state. Research shows that children from low-income families are less likely to eat breakfast at home. Out of every 100 low-income Pennsylvania children eating free or reduced-price lunch at school, only thirty-six are eating breakfast at school. As a result, children are less likely to get the nutrition and energy they need to begin the day, reducing their chances for academic success.

If you are interested in seeing if your school qualifies for this program, please contact Steve Gauvry at: sgauvry@pahunger.org .