Student Experiences in the “Breakfast in the Classroom Program”: Learnings From an Urban High School

• In Event: What Students and Teachers Know About Health: Implications for School and Community Partnerships

Abstract

Panelist 1 is the founder and principal of an urban high school focused on health in a large, metropolitan northeastern city. His work examines urban schools as sites for enhancing student and family knowledge regarding nutrition and well-being. The action research to be presented highlights the results of a school-based breakfast program and subsequent analysis of (1) students’ perspectives of what it means to be “healthy,” and (2) the role that school, home and community play in forming youth behaviors surrounding food choice and participation in physical activity.

There is increasing attention to and concern about the health practices of urban youth and the role of schools in helping students assume health literacy and positive health behaviors. Briefel and Johnson (2004) state many adolescents do not meet the recommendations for dietary intake or physical activity, both of which are closely associated with the risk of obesity. Schools are an important site to help students change some of these practices through health education as well as presenting students with healthy foods (St-Onge, Keller and Heymsfield, 2003). However, although schools have been working toward changes in promoting health, they have advanced their efforts with relatively limited information about students’ personal and family practices, knowledge of alternatives, and willingness to engage in potentially unfamiliar eating behaviors.

Research questions for this study centered on the incentives and barriers to students’ everyday health practices; their conceptions of the newly established school breakfast program; and the degree to which the school’s practices support or challenge students’ cultural and home expectations. Ethnographic data were collected from 14 high school students, grades 9 through 12, through interviews, focus groups, and observations. Data were triangulated and analyzed, yielding three themes: (1) the significance of poverty in reducing healthy choices and practices, (2) time management associated with adolescent lifestyles, and (3) a sense of community and a reduction of isolation in working toward healthy practices. Students indicated that money was the major barrier to their eating balanced meals, both at home and in transition to school, noting that they would eat “whatever they can find.” They also acknowledged the ways in which managing their time poorly results in a willingness to “take the shortest and fastest route” to available food choices, even when they are aware of healthy alternatives. In addition, students also noted a sense of community that was formed through the program—that the program allowed them to eat with others who reinforced and modeled proper eating.

The data underscore the importance of understanding both students’ healthy practices as well as the factors that motivate them to choose one behavior versus another. The data ask us to consider the ways that schools can foster students’ sense of health and well-being, while contributing to their ability to make healthy choices as they work to connect the expectations of the different cultures in which they live and learn.

Author

• Rodney Fisher, The Marie Curie School for Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions