When it comes to school breakfasts, two is better than none, says a new report released Thursday in the journal Pediatric Obesity.
Researchers tracked nearly 600 middle-school students from fifth to seventh grade, looking to see if students ate no breakfast; ate breakfast at home or school; or ate both — and whether that affected obesity rates. The result: Weight gain among students who ate "double-breakfast" was no different than that seen among all other students. Meanwhile, the risk of obesity doubled among students who skipped breakfast or ate it inconsistently.
"It seems it's a bigger problem to have kids skipping breakfast than to have these kids eating two breakfasts," says Marlene Schwartz of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and one of the study's authors.
"This study ... debunks an important misconception that school breakfast contributes to childhood obesity," says Duke Storen from Share Our Strength, a national group that runs anti-hunger and nutrition programs for children.
While direct opposition to free school breakfast is unusual, says Storen, officials sometimes balk at implementing "alternative breakfast models" designed to encourage use of the program — such as offering breakfast in grab-and-go bags or in classrooms, rather than traditional sit-down meals in a cafeteria. That's a concern, say hunger advocates, because while eligibility rules for free and reduced-price breakfast are the same as for lunch, only about half as many children get subsidized breakfast as receive lunch, according to the Food Research and Action Center, an advocacy group.