IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v35y2016i3p509-532.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Breakfast in the Classroom on Obesity and Academic Performance: Evidence from New York City

Author

Listed:
  • Sean P. Corcoran
  • Brian Elbel
  • Amy Ellen Schwartz

Abstract

Participation in the federally subsidized school breakfast program often falls well below its lunchtime counterpart. To increase take‐up, many districts have implemented Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), offering breakfast directly to students at the start of the school day. Beyond increasing participation, advocates claim BIC improves academic performance, attendance, and engagement. Others caution BIC has deleterious effects on child weight. We use the implementation of BIC in New York City (NYC) to estimate its impact on meals program participation, body mass index (BMI), achievement, and attendance. While we find large effects on participation, our findings provide no evidence of hoped‐for gains in academic performance, or of feared increases in obesity. The policy case for BIC will depend upon reductions in hunger and food insecurity for disadvantaged children, or its longer‐term effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean P. Corcoran & Brian Elbel & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 2016. "The Effect of Breakfast in the Classroom on Obesity and Academic Performance: Evidence from New York City," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 509-532, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:35:y:2016:i:3:p:509-532
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/pam.21909
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Davis, Will & Kreisman, Daniel & Musaddiq, Tareena, 2023. "The Effect of Universal Free School Meals on Child BMI," IZA Discussion Papers 16387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Watson, Michelle & Velardo, Stefania & Drummond, Murray, 2020. "Perspectives of the key stakeholders of the KickStart for Kids school breakfast program," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Daniel Borbely & Markus Gehrsitz & Stuart McIntyre & Gennaro Rossi, 2022. "Does the Provision of Universal Free School Meals Improve School Attendance and Behaviour?," Working Papers 22-5, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    4. Abouk, Rahi & Adams, Scott, 2022. "Breakfast After the Bell: The Effects of Expanding Access to School Breakfasts on the Weight and Achievement of Elementary School Children," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Michah W. Rothbart & Amy Ellen Schwartz & Emily Gutierrez, 2023. "Paying for Free Lunch: The Impact of CEP Universal Free Meals on Revenues, Spending, and Student Health," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 18(4), pages 708-737, Fall.
    6. Michah W. Rothbart, 2020. "The Impact of School Choice on Public School Budgets: Evidence From Open Enrollment in New York City," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 3-37, December.
    7. Melissa Pflugh Prescott & Judith A. Gilbride & Sean P. Corcoran & Brian Elbel & Kathleen Woolf & Roland O. Ofori & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 2022. "The Relationship between School Infrastructure and School Nutrition Program Participation and Policies in New York City," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-12, August.
    8. Agustina Laurito & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 2019. "Does School Lunch Fill the “SNAP Gap” at the End of the Month?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 49-82, July.
    9. Andres Cuadros‐Meñaca & Michael R. Thomsen & Rodolfo M. Nayga, 2023. "School breakfast and student behavior," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(1), pages 99-121, January.
    10. Cotti, Chad & Gordanier, John & Ozturk, Orgul, 2018. "When does it count? The timing of food stamp receipt and educational performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 40-50.
    11. Kaitlyn M. Eck & Colleen L. Delaney & Rashel L. Clark & Miriam P. Leary & Karla Pagan Shelnutt & Melissa D. Olfert & Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, 2019. "The “Motor of the Day”: Parent and School-Age Children’s Cognitions, Barriers, and Supports for Breakfast," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-15, September.
    12. Gottfried, Michael A. & Kirksey, Jacob, 2022. "School breakfast and young children’s absenteeism: Does meal location matter?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Cuadros-Meñaca, Andres & Thomsen, Michael R. & Nayga, Rodolfo M., 2022. "The effect of breakfast after the bell on student academic achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    14. Amy Ellen Schwartz & Michah W. Rothbart, 2020. "Let Them Eat Lunch: The Impact of Universal Free Meals on Student Performance," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 376-410, March.
    15. Cohen, Nevin & Ilieva, Rositsa T., 2021. "Expanding the boundaries of food policy: The turn to equity in New York City," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    16. Altindag, Duha T. & Baek, Deokrye & Lee, Hong & Merkle, Jessica, 2020. "Free lunch for all? The impact of universal school lunch on student misbehavior," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    17. Sally Lawrence Bullock & Spring Dawson-McClure & Kimberly Parker Truesdale & Dianne Stanton Ward & Allison E. Aiello & Alice S. Ammerman, 2022. "Associations between a Universal Free Breakfast Policy and School Breakfast Program Participation, School Attendance, and Weight Status: A District-Wide Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-13, March.
    18. Deokrye Baek & Yongjun Choi & Hong Lee, 2019. "Universal Welfare May Be Costly: Evidence from School Meal Programs and Student Fitness in South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:35:y:2016:i:3:p:509-532. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.