Free school breakfasts fail to improve learning

Feeding hungry schoolchildren does nothing to boost their learning, a new report shows.

The findings have surprised experts in a week when campaigning to introduce free food at schools to combat child poverty put pressure on the Government.

The only "significant positive effect" was that children felt less hungry, the study into free school breakfasts found.

Head of the study, Associate Professor Cliona Ni Murchu, said there were indications that attendance at school was also likely to improve but in reading, writing and maths there was no noticeable improvement.

Researchers at Auckland University's School of Population Health studied 423 children at decile one to four schools in Auckland, Waikato and Wellington for the 2010 school year.

They were given a free daily breakfast - Weet-Bix, bread with honey, jam or Marmite, and Milo - by either the Red Cross or a private sector provider.
Full report here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/7813410/Food-and-learning-connection-shot-down
______________________________
Gary:
There is food and then there is food:
"Weet-Bix, bread with honey, jam or Marmite, and Milo" - and low fat milk, I presume.  The problem with this diet is, while it fills the tummy, there are little to no nutrients to build strong bodies and bright brains.

We need to do an experiment: Two groups of hungry students.  One group gets the bread, Marmite, etc while the other group is fed a diet of fried eggs, porridge with cream, a cup of Milo and a couple of flax oil capsules (or fish oil).

I think we will see a difference.  In addition, the experimenters should measure body composition.  I predict the children on the eggs and porridge diet will be thinner and more muscular, as well as being better learners by the end of the year.

Here's a video I made several years ago about nutrition.  My son, Alama, is the star.  He is now 13yrs and in very good health.  He has no excess fat at all despite the higher than usual fat and protein content of his diet.  He is nicely muscled.

_______________________________________

About this website

The advice in these articles is given freely without promise or obligation.  Its all about giving you and your family the tools and information to take control of your health and fitness.

Obesity is not the problem - it is Soft Body Syndrome

We hear so much nowadays about the evil that is obesity. While I do not disagree that obesity is a major health problem that is associated with many, many ailments, I feel that there is a misguided and even unfair focus on obesity per se. Obesity is the outward manifestation - the symptoms - of the real problem.

Are we picking on the obese because they are an obvious and easy target? Obvious? - Yes! Easy target? - Yes! Right target? - Wrong!

I was repeatedly reminded of this during our recent holiday in the far North of sunny Queensland, Australia during their school holidays. Australia has some serious problems looming with its young people - America, move over - here come the Aussies! I have never seen so many soft young bodies in my life, as I did on the Queensland beaches. Sure, there were many obese kids and young adults; but these were the minority. The majority were bodies that, while they would have fallen mostly within healthy BMI ranges, exhibited total lack of body tone - soft bodies - bodies that have little musclulature, weak cardiovascular systems, high levels of body fat and weak skeletons.

I have said many times over the years that thin people also get cancer, have heart attacks and get sore backs.

There are plenty of people who are quite "fat" yet are very strong and have a high cardiovascular capacity. These people are those born with a genetic body type that has high endomorphic and mesomorphic characteristics - many of our Polynesian people, for example. They stay healthy if they eat well and exercise hard. These endo-mesos will only ever achieve pencil thinness at the risk of anorexic death. Regardless of body type which can never be altered, the real health risk is if one is raised soft, thus producing what I call Soft Body Syndrome (SBS).

SBS is the leading health issue facing most, if not all developed countries. Targetting food manufacturers - MacDonalds, Coca Cola, no matter how commendable that might be, or trying to get kids to eat less - is not the real solution to SBS. All this will produce is thnner SBS's which one could argue is actually a less healthy condition than an "over weight" case.

The answer to the problem is daily physical activity and the best thing we could do to get the ball rolling in the right direction is introduce daily physical activity for children in schools, beginning with pre-school centres. Compulsory because the majority of young adults nowadays, including teachers, know little else other than positionally static behavours.

We cure SBS by endowing our children - boys and girls - with Hard Bodies.

It is time to make daily physical activity compulsory in schools

We have to make daily physical activity compulsory in schools and childcare facilities and we have to do this right NOW!

News reports today that heart disease rates, including deaths, are skyrocketing in younger people while rates are dropping in older people are further indications of what we face over coming years. We have the added problem of the tsunami of ageing Baby Boomers who are making increasing demands on health and welfare services. Our health and welfare services are caught in a deadly pincer maneuver coming from above and below.

Couple this with reports today, by medical specialists, that the health system is "rotten to the core", lurching from one crisis to another, and it is clearly time for positive action. I want an end to all the talk and dithering. Let's see some real action for a change.

While there are no single solutions to this enormous problem an inexpensive and effective measure that can and should be introduced immediately is daily compulsory physical activity in every school and childcare facility. What I can tell you from years of experience in prescribing exercise is that regular physical activity that is practiced for at least 8 weeks brings about significant and often dramatic improvements in physical and mental health.

If practiced consistently for longer than 8 weeks, it is almost a given that the participant will continue to exercise indefinitely because it has become a positive habit much like the habit of brushing one's teeth if not brushed that day, the person feel uncomfortable. Same happens with habitual exercise.

Other beneficial changes happen: The exercise participant, without any need for persuasion, will make subtle, yet important improvements to their diet, including eating more fruits and vegetables and eating less "junk food". These people are most unlikely to become smokers and, if a smoker, are more likely to succeed in giving up.

"Make the parents responsible for exercising their children and feeding them properly", you might argue. My response is to say, "Give up on that idea". What we have coming through nowadays is new parents who are the first generation that really were the junk food kids that were driven everywhere by Mum in the back of the SUV. They are now the ones who are having the children. These new parents know nothing else and, regardless of escalating fuel prices, they will persist in driving Jane and Johnny to school and everywhere else; and, for them, "party food" is the norm.

A further issue is that the new teachers now coming into the schools are the same as young parents - they have little understanding of exercise, how to incorporate it into daily life, how to make it fun and effective and they know little, in practice, about what consititutes a healthy diet. While some schools or classes have daily physical activity, these are by far in the the minority and these rely on the enthusiastic drive of a few individuals. It would be folly to try to extend these programmes by relying on the voluntary participation by statically challenged teachers who know nothing other than sloth and bags of potato chips.

The solution is compulsory daily physical activity in schools and childcare facilities that is taken by each class teacher for his or her pupils. While there will be resistance, this will abate as the programme progresses beyond 8 weeks and the practice becomes a habit for all and the benefits, like less absenteeism and better academic grades, begin to kick in.