When Stomachs Growl, Learning Falters

The stark stories of a group of ninth graders like Luis Ruiz and Dianne Reyes at the James A. Foshay Learning Center in South Los Angeles illustrate an unintended consequence of hunger and food insecurity: poor academic performance.

by Francesca Ayala and Jacqueline Howard

Lote'yan Williams, 14, has her first meal of the day when she gets home from school. (Photo by Francesca Ayala and Jacqueline Howard

Loyte’yan Williams, 14, only eats once a day, at dinnertime.

“We hardly eat anything,” she said. “When there’s nothing [to eat at home], I get something to drink and that’s it.”

For Luis Ruiz, also 14, dinner is often a bowl of cereal, eaten after he gets home from school. “My mom doesn’t always cook dinner,” he said.

“My first meal of the day is usually at three-thirty when I get home from school,” echoes Dianne Reyes, 14.

And for 14-year-old Omar Sanchez, “There’s nothing to eat at home right now. Nothing.”

These four 9th graders, among the 3,300 students at the James A. Foshay learning center, are part of a growing number of South Los Angeles schoolchildren considered “food insecure,” meaning their families lack access to sufficient food.

Interviews with many of these middle schoolers paint a picture of sparsely stocked cupboards and poor nutritional habits, even as the students sometimes downplay their families’ circumstances.

“I do get hungry,” said 14-year-old David Melara. “At home I have a couple of fruits, not much vegetables and I have a couple of [cans] of beans… I think.” He lowered his gaze to the floor and chuckled nervously. “My mom needs to go to the market still.”

Anecdotal evidence from students, coupled with the fact that 85% of students are eligible for free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches, suggest that hunger, food insecurity and poor nutrition are becoming more prevalent at Foshay.

School officials and experts attribute it to several factors, including low-income backgrounds, the reality of a “food desert” and poor access to healthy foods, and lack of nutritional education,which leads to poor food choices. Such factors are causing students to consume either too few or bad calories, which can affect their school performance.

“Their performance is affected if they don’t have breakfast, especially in the morning periods,” said Alicia Esparza, who teaches nutrition to 9th graders at Foshay. “They are not able to concentrate.”

Although there is no way to pinpoint exactly how much hunger and poor nutrition contribute to lagging school performance, Foshay principal Yvonne Edwards worries about the potential impact on her students’ tests scores.

In 2009, test scores did not climb as much as Edwards had hoped – only 4 percent. “Our test scores did go down,” she said. Edwards said that the year before, the students’ test scores increased by about 18 percent.

“If a child’s hungry, that’s all they’re going to be able to concentrate on all day,” said Edwards. “It’s so important that they have nutrition.”

A study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture shows that “approximately one in six American children is at risk of hunger and potentially goes to bed hungry at some point in the year due to lack of household resources to secure an adequate food supply.”

Research conducted by Tufts University in 1998 “indicates that even mild under-nutrition experienced by young children during critical periods of growth impacts the behavior of children, their school performance and their overall cognitive development.”[1]

Frank R. Sinatra, a USC professor of pediatrics, said, “Kids who skip meals don’t have the metabolic fuel to concentrate. If you’re not doing well in school because you’re not eating well, you get behind.”

Joseph Lynch, 14, feels the difference when he skips meals. “Sometimes I feel bad because I didn’t eat anything for quite a while, and that’s when I lose focus,” he said..

“When I don’t eat breakfast I feel like it’s really hard to concentrate in class, I start getting headaches and I start feeling really lazy,” said 14-year-old Milton Salinas.

“I rarely do eat breakfast and honestly I do see the difference,” said 14-year-old Daniel Lopez. “In the morning classes, I’m out of it. I want to focus but it’s hard for me… When I do eat breakfast, I’m more energized.”

Interviews with Foshay students suggest with they may be coping with growing food insecurity.

“We always have a few extra noodle soups to put in the microwave just in case,” said Juan Escalante, 14, who lives at home with his mother, his two brothers and his two cousins. His father is away, working in Virginia. “The soup is our backup until we go to the store.”

“I kind of do this thing where I keep going to the refrigerator, hoping something will pop up,” said 14-year-old Kristin Holloway.

Budget cuts compound matters

Eighty-five percent of Foshay students come from low-income families and therefore qualify to receive free or discounted meals from the school’s cafeteria.

As poverty in South Los Angeles rises, so does the number of qualifying families, according toFlorence, Simpson, a supervisor for the Los Angeles Unified School District’s food services branch.

“We’re not only seeing students participating [in the free lunch program] more, they’re throwing less away,” said Simpson. “They’re cleaning their plates.”

Despite the rise in food insecure children, Edwards said that the district budget cuts are starting to limit the amount of food assistance schools can deliver. This has made it difficult for school officials to meet the growing demand for public school students to eat for free or at a lower cost.

Budget reports indicate that LAUSD is facing a cumulative deficit of $894 million for 2009 to 2010 [2]. For the district to cope, cutbacks are being made everywhere. Cafeteria menus have been downscaled, meaning fewer choices.

Three years ago, LAUSD cafeterias offered 15 different entrée choices on their menus. Now, students have three entrees to choose from. Instead of being prepared on-site, heat-and-serve meals are prepared in LAUSD’s central kitchen, packaged and delivered to school cafeterias.

LAUSD has the nation’s largest free breakfast program and the second largest free lunch program. These programs, aimed at low-income, food-insecure children, are designed to help tackle the daily issue of concentration among Foshay students who skip meals or don’t get enough to eat at home.

But this goal is elusive, in part because of immense logistical problems: Nearly 3,000 qualifying students cannot possibly move through the cafeteria in the allotted a half hour lunch period.

The line of students waiting to buy food extends from inside the Foshay cafeteria building, past the cafeteria doors and all around the outside walls every day. Inside, students form lines in front of the four cash registers to pay for their meals. Everyone has half an hour to eat his or her lunch before the 7th period bell rings.

Some students at Foshay prefer to avoid the long lunch lines by purchasing chips and pretzels from the student store. Other students skip lunch altogether.

“The availability of junk food and the lack of time kids have to eat their lunch… are factors that create the perfect storm,” said Stephanie Hoffman, a health careers teacher at Foshay.

According to Hoffman, having limited access to healthy food has shaped her students’ eating habits, which she fears will have long-term effects on their development and overall health.

“When they [have an unhealthy diet] and their physical activity is restricted, kids can’t be performing at their peak level,” Hoffman said.

Esparza said skipping meals plays a big role in having an unhealthy diet.

“Students skip meals and by the time they want to eat something, they are very hungry and end up eating the wrong things,” she said.

The effect of poor nutrition — skipping a school lunch in favor of chips and a soda, for example— has long-term consequences for cognition and brain development, according to researchers.

Hunger on the brain

Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a professor at UCLA’s department of neurosurgery and physiological science, writes that what we eat directly affects how our brain functions. In his studies, Gómez-Pinilla has found that specific nutrients affect a person’s cognition and emotion. For example, Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and walnuts, help brain development, while saturated fats,found in most junk food, contributes to brain deterioration.

“Dietary manipulations are a viable strategy for enhancing cognitive abilities and protecting the brain from damage, promoting repair and counteracting the effects of aging,”[3] writes Gómez-Pinilla. “Brain networks that are associated with the control of feeding are intimately associated with those that are involved in processing emotions, reward and cognition.”

In an interview, Gómez-Pinilla was asked to apply his findings to Foshay students. He said that students from food insecure families risk compromising their cognitive function and resistance to disease.

“One short-term problem [with skipping meals] is that hunger may lead to stress or anxiety that may reduce concentration in lectures,” said Gómez-Pinilla of the Foshay students’ eating habits. He said that erratic eating schedules are worsened when children forego a healthy meal in favor of junk and fast food.

“This is a recipe for an obese adolescent and type 2 diabetes,” said Gómez-Pinilla. “This may have long-term negative consequences for brain function as now we know that junk food is bad for the brain.”

School and district efforts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition

LAUSD officials, meanwhile, are “fighting rising food and structural costs,” said Simpson. “The government reimbursement doesn’t seem to keep pace with that so each year, we fight a battle with how we’re going to balance the budget… but at some point, it might actually affect what’s on the student’s plate.”

Foshay has applied with the government to be considered as a Provision 2 school. Once approved,this means that can eat, free of charge, while federal funding covers every single one of their meals rather than just covering a big percentage of the student body.

Until that application is processed and approved, one challenge Simpson’s department is faced with is eliminating the logistical obstacles to feeding as many public school students as possible.

“There is a direct correlation between students eating and being well-nourished and performing in the classroom,” said Simpson. “When students can’t get through the line or can’t eat… then that’s hurting us.”

[1] Data taken from ConAgra Foods Foundation http://www.nourishkidstoday.org/understand-the-problem/index.jsp

[2] Data taken from LAUSD news release http://notebook.lausd.net/pls/ptl/docs/PAGE/CA_LAUSD/FLDR_LAUSD_NEWS/FLDR_PRESS_RELEASES/BUDGET2_26_09.PDF

[3] Excerpt from “Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function” by Fernando Gomez-Pinilla in Nature Vol. 9, July 2009