Studies also show that eating a good breakfast especially helps children perform better
Published in the Sept. 3- 16, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
As the new school year starts, parents and guardians need to ensure the children in their care eat healthy and nutritious food in order to get the most out of their academic day. Scott McMillan, the director of food services at the Morgan Hill Unified School District, is part of this important activity of providing healthy brunch and lunch meals to empower young minds.
Jayden Saldivar eats a sandwich during lunch at El Toro Elementary School. The sixth grader said good food habits are important for learning.
Photo by Marty Cheek
At El Toro Elementary School, he showed off one of the district’s brand-new salad bars as excited kids ran up and selected a variety of fruits and vegetables including spinach and tomato salad, broccoli and tomato salad, cooked corn, carrots, and apples and oranges. The students then went to a serving area where they picked up lunch food with grain and protein content.
“By eating healthier, it’s going to help them with their day to get through the time at class,” McMillan said. “They’ll have the energy that they need to learn what they’re being taught. It gives them that proper balance that they need with food to keep the energy in their body.”
Eating a properly balanced and nutritious meal at breakfast and lunch is a critical component of the success students can achieve in the classroom. Studies published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition show that hungry children tend to have lower math scores and are more likely to repeat a grade, come to school late, or not attend school at all. Studies also show that eating a good breakfast especially helps children perform better.
“A child with poor nutrition is going to suffer in academics,” McMillan said. “They won’t have the mental capacity to do the learning because they’re hungry. Their body is not giving them the energy that they need in order to learn.”
Parents must take an active role with their children to build healthy habits in nutrition, something that can benefit a child not just at school but for the rest of their lives.
“I’m a parent myself,” McMillan said. “We have to show our children that we eat the healthy stuff so that they learn to eat it. If we as parents aren’t eating healthy, then our children aren’t going to learn to eat healthy. We need to encourage them to make those right choices.”
Very often parents will take on an authoritative role and tell their children to eat it because they said so. But it’s better to educate children on the benefits of eating healthy instead, McMillan said.
Parents need to watch their child’s diets to make sure they stay away from the unhealthy foods such as sugary soft drinks, sports drinks, salty snacks, candy and high-fat baked goods like cake and cookies. These can lead to obesity. They also negatively impact learning. A UCLA study in 2012 showed that high-fructose diet can sabotage learning and memory retention, thus bringing down grades.
Parents who prepare their child’s school lunch need to resist the temptation of going for simple but non-nutritious packaged foods such as chips and sodas.
“There are lots of parents who are feeding their kids (school lunches),” McMillan said. “A lot of parents have lifestyles that are busy and it’s quicker to grab those convenient things and throw it in the lunch.”
El Toro sixth-grader Jayden Saldivar said good food habits are important to learn at an early age to help achieve longevity.
“I think it’s important for us to eat well so we can be more active and we can do more things and study better,” he said. “Eating well in school is important so that your brain can function right and so your brain is learning more.”
His friend Justin Mestaz agreed, saying that eating healthy is vital to staying active in school.
“It helps you succeed like in things like P.E.,” he said. “And you can run and also it lets you do well in testing and studying. Vegetables are brain food.”
