GARCIA LAUNCHES HEALTHY BREAKFAST ACT
California’s Students Will Receive a Healthy Meal to Start Their Day
Indio – Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral City) will speak and eat with students at the Dr. Reynaldo J. Carreon Jr. Academy School in Indio on Monday, March 27 at 7:45 A.M. about the importance of eating a healthy breakfast to improve academic performance and lifelong health. This visit is in conjunction with her introduction of AB 1916, the Breakfast the Building Blocks of Learning Act, that will be heard before the Assembly Education Committee on April 5, 2006.
Assemblywoman Garcia recognizes that “hungry children cannot learn.” This fact led her to introduce AB 1916, which requires schools with a high percentage of low-income children to offer a healthy breakfast.
California Food Policy Advocates’ Executive Director Kenneth Hecht shares Ms. Garcia’s belief that low-income schools have a special responsibility to ensure healthy nutrition options. Research shows that breakfast improves test scores and classroom behavior and helps prevent obesity.
School personnel will be available to comment on the benefits of breakfast to learning and growth. Approximately 110 children eat school breakfast at Dr. Reynaldo J. Carreon Jr. Academy School each day.
This press conference will emphasize the importance a healthy breakfast has not only on children’s physical health right now, but their future physical and mental health as well.
