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Founded by the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, the School
Breakfast Program (SBP), like the National School Lunch
Program (NSLP), provides nutritional meals to students
at participating schools (and to children in a few residential
child care institutions). Eligible students receive free
or reduced-price breakfasts.
The number of schools participating in the SBP increased
dramatically in the early 1990s, growing by nearly 9 percent
annually between fiscal 1989 and fiscal 1995. Since then,
the number of participating schools has continued to increase,
although participation still lags that of the NSLP (with
more than 95,000 schools participating). In 2007, 79,950
schools participated in the SBP, up from 78,017 in 2006.
Student participation in the SBP has also grown.
In fiscal 1989, 3.7 million students participated in the
program on a given school day, and a total of 658 million
breakfasts were served. In fiscal 2007, 10.1 million students
participated in the program daily, 4 percent more than
the previous year. Most participants have high need; of
the 1.7 billion breakfasts served, 71 percent were free
and another 10 percent were provided at reduced price.
Recommended readings—Recent
ERS research projects related to the SBP have studied
the effects of school
nutrition programs on children's nutritional status
and the feasibility
of measuring the effect of school breakfasts on learning.
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