Food & School
Have you very wondered if your grades in school had anything to do with your hunger? These statistics can start to from very young, as early as one’s childhood. In Fairfax County there is a youth survey that is conducted annually for all of the students in sixth, eighth, tenth and twelfth grade. The survey includes questions that asked students questions such as, “How many times has one gone hungry in the past 30 days?”. According to the youth survey itself it reports, “One out of five students reported going hungry at least some of the time in the past 30 days.”
Most of these teens affected in these Fairfax schools are Hispanic and/or African American, and live in single-parent homes. Kids not getting the necessary nutrition is only part of the problem. According to capitalareafoodbank.org, the U.S. Census ACS 2006-2008 found that about 13 percent of people in Northern Virginia are at risk of hunger, and 1 in 6 children in Northern Virginia were at risk of hunger.
The bigger problem that we are faced with when looking at hunger is that it is an issue that directly affects education. A student’s hunger has been correlated with skipping school and lower grades. According to the Nutrition Cognition Initiative, continuous low nutritional intake affects factors such as motivation and attentiveness, which can have a negative effect on developmental processes such as learning and students attain lower scores on standardized achievement tests. The Fairfax County Youth Survey not only asks the question of if they have gone hungry in the past 30 days, but it also surveys the grades that they have gotten and how many days of school they have missed or skipped.
When looking at the surveys conducted in the past few years, there is no question about whether food is important not only for our daily consumption, but also for that push needed to succeed and experience education to the fullest.
Charlie White a six-year-old second grader at Oakton Elementary School enjoys his lunchtime. “I really think lunchtime is my favorite! Sometimes my mom makes my lunch and sometimes if I am good I can pizza on some school days.”
Charlie doesn’t like his vegetables as much he says, “ I don’t really eat all my vegetables. I do like the apples my mom packs though.”
Charlie White age 6
Editor: Jennifer Garcia
Multimedia: Katie Pappas
Community Manager: Attie Pearsall
Data Journalist: Asya Rojas
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