How School Nutrition Supports Student Performance
Inattentive, unfocused, and underachieving students don’t always have a desire to distract and disrupt their fellow students and teachers. A frequent cause of these behaviors is nutritional, a result of a less-than-nutritious school lunch program or because students are making poor choices within the program options.
If your school nutrition software is not suggesting or recommending nutritious meals with high-quality ingredients for breakfast, lunch, and after-school programs, student grades, attitudes, and overall wellbeing can suffer. Here’s why that matters.
Times Have Changed
Traditionally, schools used to supply only lunches for children, and the ingredients of those meals were in the hands of the head school cafeteria worker. Nowadays, students arrive at school early, and they leave late for study groups, extracurricular activities, and sports, requiring school districts to provide breakfasts, lunches, and after-school snacks across their schools. Supplying the students with the right foods to fuel them for their day ahead–and start them on a path toward healthy living is an essential part of school nutrition and food service programs and planning.
Your School’s Food Options Affect Your Students
Many studies and research have been conducted on school nutrition and how it impacts students. There are three significant ways that school nutrition can affect a student’s performance in the classroom and set them up for long-term success.
- The right nourishment benefits and contributes to children’s healthy physical development.
- A nutritious diet can positively impact concentration and memory. A poor diet has been shown to inhibit cognition.
- The right nutrients can also reduce hyperactivity and allow the student to function better in and out of the classroom.
The Right Nutrition Could Lead to Higher Test Scores
Standardized test scores are frequently used to determine a school district’s overall performance. Part of the recipe for improving scores district-wide could center around the meals offered to their students. Over a five-year period in California, test scores were analyzed for about 10,000 students. Data analysis concluded that when students were provided with a healthy meal, their test scores improved.
Learning to Make Healthy Choices Extends Beyond the Classroom
There are other considerations to school nutrition programs besides academic performance alone. Unhealthy eating patterns and poor food choices can affect children for the rest of their lives. Helping kids make healthy choices that last throughout adulthood should be a crucial consideration in determining a district’s comprehensive approach to school nutrition programs and mealtime offerings.
Investing in the Right School Nutrition Software Supports Staff and Students
School nutrition software that helps administrators and food service directors support students is the answer to student nutrition, staffing, and overall software and hardware performance. Since dietitians may not be on staff, the right school nutrition software can be indispensable to administrators who want to help their students eat healthier and make better nutrition choices, but who don’t have the resources to do so.
At Harris School Nutrition Solutions, we know that your school nutrition software should be part of a solution that works for everyone, instead of creating more problems. Obstacles and challenges within your tools and programs take you away from your primary focus—efficiently feeding your students with quality, nutritious meals that enhance their learning and their lives.
We have more than 30 years of experience in creating and implementing comprehensive school nutrition solutions, and our friendly team is ready to support your students, your staff, and your entire district’s school nutrition program. Contact us to talk more about school nutrition software solutions that will set up everyone in your district for success.