Most college students can agree that their first meal of the day isn’t breakfast, well, at least not a proper breakfast. They would normally dash out of the house with a banana or granola bar in one hand and a cup of coffee or hot chocolate in the other without thinking about the nutrition content in them. Those foods and drinks alone are not sufficient enough for you to kick start your day, especially if you have a long day ahead of you. This is a habit that can be instilled in a person if they were not educated about the importance of breakfast since they were young by their parents, or caregivers.
The brochure that I chose was created by The School Nutrition Association (SNA). SNA is a national organization of school nutrition professionals committed to advancing the quality of school meal programs through education and advocacy. They’ve came up with other interesting brochures and magazines to educate students and parents about the importance of nutrition in today’s society. This brochure discusses the importance of having breakfast through National School Breakfast Week by introducing School Breakfast with the theme of “Be a Star with School Breakfast”.
What really caught my eye in this brochure, is that it informs parents about the importance for their kids to have a proper breakfast to kick start the day. The brochure mentions the benefits of consuming school breakfast for kids, which are: higher academic scores, improved behavior, reduced tardiness, and convenience and value for parents. It really took the parents role into consideration as well, as they might be really busy in the morning preparing for work, getting their kids ready, etc., and that they might not have time to prepare breakfast for their children, which is why School Breakfast would be the appropriate choice for their kids.
One of the surprising elements that I found on the brochure is that, instead of just listing down the benefits of eating school breakfast, SNA actually included a small Health and Nutrition section of the first page which has information based on the nutrition standards of USDA in 2012. I really like the fact that they went the extra mile to include this information in it, and to further prove that having school breakfast is actually beneficial. Another thing that I find surprising is that, the brochure included citations in them at the bottom of the first page. Not many brochures that I came across mentioned the source of their information, which could be really misleading because the readers might not even know whether the information is true or not. With the citations, they could actually go online to check whether the facts are accurate or not.
The most interesting thing on this brochure is that, it has two game sections at the back of it. For the first game, the readers gets a chance to “show off their brain powers” b
y filling in the blanks with words that best describe a healthy breakfast, and you can even compose a freestyle poem. The second game that the readers get to play is “Starry Scramble”, where they have to unscramble a word based on the description that is given. I feel that this section in particular would really draw school kids to the brochure, as it contains information in the form of a game which would attract the child.
As a nutrition educator, I would definitely use this brochure to educate kids and even parents about the importance of eating breakfast in the morning, seeing that there are many people that actually skip this meal which happens to be the most important meal of the day. I would also advise them to check out the USDA website which has much more information about health and nutrition so that they would understand more about the importance of choosing the right kinds of food for their daily meals. Parents should train their kids to eat breakfast in the morning so that it wouldn’t become a habit as they grow older.
(By clicking on the pictures, you can view the enlarged version of the brochure)