Page 134 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2025

HEALTHY LIVING
NEW YEAR NEW
The Importance of a Healthy Breakfast
The school environment can provide students with opportunities to learn about and practice healthy eating through nutrition education, the availability of nutritious foods and beverages, and messages about food in the cafeteria and throughout the school campus. Those in education must find ways to work with parents to make nutrition a focal point,
as some schools have struggled in the past. This is especially true in the southern United States. This is one of the reasons Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas have an ongoing rivalry over the most obese U.S. state.
One of the mainstays of a healthy diet is a nutritious breakfast. Often, people associate a “good breakfast” with having a full stomach. However, the contents of that full stomach are equally important.
The School Health Index (SHI): Self-Assessment & Planning Guide, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, remarks that successful programs use specifications that require “lower added sugar content” in prepared foods like cereal
bars, breakfast items like pancakes or waffles, and products like canned fruit. This is because, for nutrition, iron and breakfast intake are associated with improved cognitive performance and better attendance.
The index goes on to state meals and snacks sold by elementary schools should have as the first ingredient a fruit, a vegetable, a
story by Dr. Nickie Harris-Ray
dairy product, or a protein food. Proteins include beans, eggs, poultry, meat, nuts, seeds. High-salt and high-fat meals should be an occasional event in a growing student’s daily breakfast, not the norm. Schools play an essential role in education and concentration, starting with breakfast, which the National School Breakfast Program standardizes.
Eating processed foods such as soft drinks, instant noodles, fast food, and sugary snacks more than a few times a week has been linked to poor academic performance in some studies. While this may seem like common knowledge, it’s
easy for individuals to develop the habit
of reaching for quick fast food
snacks for themselves
or their children while
attending to daily
errands. These behaviors
often evolve into lasting
habits in adulthood.
Let’s start the New Year off right by consciously trying
to implement more healthy options into your breakfast menu to help your kids excel in school, while adding nutrition to the household. Tis the season!
134 | December 2025
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