[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 10, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       SENSE OF HOUSE REGARDING NATIONAL SCHOOL BREAKFAST PROGRAM

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                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 9, 2009

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 210 seeks to express 
the sense of the House of Representatives that providing breakfast in 
schools through the National School Breakfast Program has a positive 
impact on classroom performance. I salute my colleague, Rep. Moore from 
Wisconsin, in her efforts to promote the National School Breakfast 
Program, and to recognize the positive impact that it has on our 
students. I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.
  It has often been said that the children are our future. As Members 
of Congress and adults, we must do all that we can to provide their 
well-being, safety, and excellence in school.
  A former U.S. Surgeon General once articulated, ``This is expensive 
stupidity . . . trying to educate children with half starved bodies.'' 
While educators, parents and policymakers generally agree that children 
need breakfast in order to learn, function and grow, the nation still 
has a ways to go to insure that all needy and at-risk children receive 
a daily school breakfast. While nearly 100,000 individual schools 
across the country offer a school lunch, more than 15,000 of them still 
do not make breakfast available to children who are in need. In some 
states, only 50-60% of the schools serving students lunch also provide 
them with a breakfast to start the day.
  We must endorse programs aimed to enhance the educational welfare of 
our children. As President Obama recently stated in his first address 
to a joint session of Congress, ``These education policies will open 
the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure 
they walk through them.''
  Beginning over twenty years ago, and continuing today, scholarly 
research has established that the School Breakfast Program 
significantly improves the cognitive abilities and learning capacities 
of children. Matched controlled studies, for example, indicate that 
low-income children who receive school breakfasts do significantly 
better on a variety of indicators than low-income peers who go without 
breakfasts. Notably, the better outcomes associated with school 
breakfast include both educational preparedness (attendance, energy, 
alertness, memory) and educational outcome measures (math scores, 
grades, reading ability).
  When a child misses even one meal, let alone experiences chronic food 
shortages, impairments occur whether they are lethargy and inattention, 
tiredness and distraction, or actual physical symptoms such as 
stomachaches and headaches. The research from the United States 
Department of Agriculture shows that feeding children breakfast in 
school helps to prevent these adverse outcomes. Children getting 
breakfast at school also are sick less often, have fewer problems 
associated with hunger, such as dizziness, stomachaches and ear aches, 
and do significantly better than their peers who do not get a school 
breakfast in terms of cooperation, discipline and inter-personal 
behaviors.
  Mr. Speaker, our failure to fully utilize the School Breakfast 
Program has substantial costs, costs that greatly reduce the return on 
educational investment in communities and states across the nation. 
Moreover, longer-term costs also are borne by young children who arrive 
at school unable to fully participate in the educational process due to 
lack of adequate nutrition.
  We, as Members of Congress, cannot allow for a matter such as child 
hunger, which we as Congress can help eradicate, to act as an 
impediment to the education of our children. President Obama 
articulated very fittingly, that ``in a global economy where the most 
valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no 
longer just a pathway to opportunity--it is a pre-requisite.''
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 210, expressing 
the sense of the House of Representatives that providing breakfast in 
schools through the National School Breakfast Program has a positive 
impact on classroom performance, because the School Breakfast Program 
represents a key way to protect these children and to get a better 
return on educational investments as well.

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