Breakfast Project

Through my internship  as a health professional at American Dairy Association North East, I was given a project by one of the dietitians to  make  a bulletin board in a box. The whole concept and idea for  this project came from thinking about the bulletin boards that are outside of nurses offices at schools, and our initiative to get breakfast in the classroom of all schools to ensure that kids are getting a nutritionally sound start to their day.

This project started with a lot of research and, actually, another project having to do with breakfast after the bell research. I read a few research studies and found that kids that get free breakfast in the classroom, like schools in New York  City, have seen increased attendance from students, healthier BMIs, better overall nutrition, increased participation. Thousands of kids go to school hungry every  morning because they didn't  have breakfast, and go to the nurses office with hunger pains, tiredness and lack of focus. All these symptoms could be prevented by providing breakfast in the classroom.

The research showed that students who skip breakfast tend to have a higher BMI, due to eating large amounts of food later in the day to make up for their morning hunger. Kids who had breakfast at home, and who also had breakfast in school, showed a healthy weight gain with growing and had less incidence of obesity. Kids are supposed to be growing  and getting bigger every day, and they cannot do  that in a healthy matter without breakfast.

The Health Professional team and I brainstormed on how we wanted this project to look and what messages we wanted to relay, and employed the help of a graphic designer and printer to make this vision come true. Our title to the bulletin board is "Is your Breakfast an A+"! We incorporated a breakfast equation that the nurses can design themselves, that includes a whole grain, a fruit and a serving of dairy, with multiple different outcomes like increased attendance, better participation, better student nutrition. The nurses can make their own equation with our provided foods!

The finish products came into the office this week before they were to be handed out at School Nurses conferences, and I  got to take a look! I absolutely love the way that this project came out and cannot wait to see how the nurses assemble their bulletin boards!

Here is what the finished project looks like!