100 years of extremely bad kid’s breakfasts

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If you think the crisis of bad pre-school breakfasts is a function of 20th-century grab-and-go lifestyles, or low-income demographics, or kids too busy with Twitter to sit down to eat – think again.

An interesting re-published feature from the Journal of the American Medical Association this week bears a striking resemblance to modern research on what kids eat – or, rather, don’t eat. The article, written 100 years ago by an M.D. in Philadelphia, remarks on the nutrition crisis facing school-aged children.

…of 12,800 children 2,950, or more than 23 per cent., either had, on the morning examined, no breakfast or a miserably inadequate breakfast…the result of other investigations made in New York City, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Chicago, which show that of 40,746 children 14,121, or 34.65 per cent had gone to school breakfastless, or with nothing more than bread with tea or coffee…

Compare that to a recent publication by the USDA that runs down the eating habits of American children. Researchers found that close to 20 percent of kids – from high- and low-income households – skipped breakfast on most school days. Another portion ate breakfast at school, and resultingly subsisted on products that “fell short of recommendations” for nutritional metrics like saturated fat and fresh foods.

And then there’s the blame game. The JAMA article cites “unfortunate surroundings” and “poor home surroundings [and] personal habits” including “various evening stimulants, rich meals [and] excitement of music and visitors.” Likewise, the USDA report blames home environs, and other research points to overwhelming school and extracurricular settings, and the lure of TV, Internet and sleep. No comment on – er – “evening stimulants,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

So we haven’t made much progress in fueling our kids over the last 100 years. But maybe there’s one improvement: of 2,000 kids polled in 1909, a whopping 58 percent were coffee-drinkers. Today? Only around 6 percent. I guess kids these days have found alternative sources of stimulation.