Eating Breakfast in the Classroom Increased Obesity in Schoolchildren

The federal School Breakfast Program is offered to children of low-income families in U.S. public schools to help improve academic achievement and food security. Offering breakfast in the classroom, rather than before school, is an innovative way to address relatively low program usage, but its effects have not been studied.

Researchers randomized 16 Philadelphia public schools (kindergarten–8th grade) to offer either the standard School Breakfast Program (control; breakfast offered in cafeteria before the school day started, standard nutrition education given) or the intervention, where breakfast was offered in the classroom and special nutrition education activities were carried out in the school and in the surrounding community. Study par…