Back to school series: The most important thing a student needs

• New backpack? Check.
• Fresh notebooks? Check.
• Crisp pencils, pens, paper and other school supplies? Check.
• Laptop and iPad? Check.
• Sharp first-day outfit? Ready.

Those are the back-to-school must-haves for many Canadians. But there’s one essential item that matters more than all of them: food.

Because each day, millions of children go to school on an empty stomach.

Child hunger is an impediment to learning. It diminishes the ability to focus. It robs children of energy. It’s what hungry children may think about while quietly sitting at their desks, instead of the lesson being taught.

And it needs to end.

Because food doesn’t just fill a child’s stomach. It helps fill their mind, too.

Food is fuel

The brain is the command centre for learning. It:

• Processes what a teacher says.
• Makes sense of what a child reads.
• Stores new information.
• Retrieves memories.
• Decides how to respond.

All that work requires fuel.

And while the brain makes up only two per cent of body weight, it uses 20 per cent of the energy the body uses. Even when at rest or asleep.

Much of that energy, that fuel, comes from food.

What happens when children don’t have fuel?

Hunger makes it harder to…

• Focus on what the teacher is saying.
• Stay alert during the school day.
• Understand new information.
• Remember what’s been learned.
• Participate in classroom activities.

Hunger isn’t a passing feeling. It’s not a distraction that can be switched off. It’s a question that can linger without an answer:

When will I eat?

For a hungry child, that question competes with every other question being asked in the classroom.

What’s the answer to this math problem?

What happens next in the story?

What does this word mean?

And always present in the back of their mind:

When will I eat?

The impact of food insecurity on education

When children go to school hungry, they may not go to school at all. Undernourished students have just a 58 per cent attendance rate, compared to 85 per cent for food-secure peers.

And around the world:

• Over 19 per cent of food-insecure children have repeated a grade.
• Malnutrition increases the likelihood of failing a math test by 20 per cent.
• At least one in 10 children drop out of school due to hunger.
• Hungry children are 50 per cent more likely to drop out of school to contribute to family income.

An empty stomach becomes an empty space where concentration, energy and learning should be.

One hungry morning can lead to another and another. Soon, hunger and malnutrition become barriers to showing up, staying focused and learning, thriving and succeeding.

There is more than enough food in the world for everyone. It does not have to be this way.

When food meets education

Sometimes, one of the most important things we can give a child before they open a textbook isn't a pencil, a notebook or even a new backpack.

It’s a meal.

A nutritious meal does more than quiet a rumbling stomach. It helps children get to school, stay in school and make the most of their time in the classroom.

Improved attendance

For a child living with food insecurity, school can provide something incredibly important:

A reliable meal.

That can be a powerful incentive to attend.

Globally, 466 million children receive school meals daily. Beyond being a source of nutrition, a school-supplied meal is a reason to wake up, attend class and get an education. Eventually, that opens pathways out of poverty and into opportunity.

Children who receive school meals attend an average of 2.6 per cent more of possible school days. Using Ontario (where World Vision Canada is located) as an example, the school year is around 194 days.

So, a 2.6 per cent increase is roughly five additional days of attendance. Five more days to:

• Learn something new
• Ask a question
• Get an answer
• Practice a skill
• Build a friendship
• Discover new interests

Five days may not sound like much. For a hungry child, though, those five days represent five more opportunities to succeed. Five more steps towards hope.

Better learning

Eating a healthy meal, in and of itself, does not automatically guarantee a child will get better grades.

But it does allow children to concentrate and pay attention.

And when combined with excellent teaching quality and a positive classroom environment, it does help immensely. With fuel from a nutritious school meal, students can:

• Achieve 17.5 per cent higher scores on standardized math tests.
• See a four percentile point increase in overall test scores.
• Score 18 per cent higher in reading and literacy tests.

It’s important to note that food isn’t a magic ingredient that makes every test score rise.

Rather, adequate nutrition—along with school supplies, caring teachers, updated textbooks and determination — create the conditions children need to participate in learning.

Supporting growing bodies

School and education are more than mental. They’re physical, too:

• A game of tag at recess.
• Soccer during gym class.
• Participating in sports teams from football to basketball to baseball.
• Picking sides and getting together for an old-fashioned tug-of-war.

Children need fuel for all of it.

A growing body needs energy and nutrients to build bones, muscles and other tissues. This also supports healthy development and provides the reserves needed to get active and stay active.

Without healthy meals, hungry children may feel too weak to participate. So, they sit out and miss out.

But when healthy school foods, fruits and vegetables are included with regular physical activity, children’s daily physical activity increases by a median of 22 minutes.

That’s more energy, and more time, for children to move, play, run, jump, coordinate, react and recover.

Because at school, learning isn’t limited to reading, writing and arithmetic.

Children are learning to move through the world, too.

What should be on the menu: healthy food for students

There isn’t a magical, singular “brain food” that makes a child smarter. The brain, like everything else, needs a variety of nutrients.

In other words, a varied, balanced diet.

For children, that includes things like:

• Whole grains
• Beans and lentils
• Eggs
• Fish
• Dairy
• Fruits and vegetables
• Nuts and seeds
• Lean meats and poultry

Together, these foods provide carbohydrates for energy, protein, healthy fats and vitamins and minerals crucial for healthy growth.

But there’s a catch

Knowing what makes a nutritious meal does not mean every family can afford to put it on the table.

Globally, more than 2.4 billion people —including over 700 million children—are facing food insecurity. For the hungriest among us, the challenge isn’t choosing between blueberries or strawberries. Or between milk and apple juice.

It may be not having enough food for breakfast at all, before heading to school.

Help World Vision Canada fuel minds and bodies with nutritious food

It’s easy to think about what children need to put in their backpacks for the school year. Pens, pencils, paper and books fuel the mind in one way.

But perhaps we should spend time thinking about what they need to put in their bodies. Because healthy food and nutritious meals fuel it in another way.

Hunger makes it harder to concentrate. Harder to stay alert. Harder to participate. It can stand between a child and an education that can help change their future.

A meal can help remove that barrier

So, as another school year begins, think beyond the backpack:

• Sponsor a child to provide access to education and healthcare. Empower communities and transform lives.
• Give to where most needed and provide essentials like food, healthcare and education and help children rise above poverty.