Middlebrook School students Tayla Henning and Yustyna Filinskyy are spreading the word about the impact of malnutrition on the human body, and have made their case to school officials for making sure local students have access to more nutritious options during the school day.
The two 8th graders delivered a formal presentation of their research findings to school administrators, Superintendent Kevin Smith and members of the Board of Education. Also in attendance was State Senator Ceci Maher (D-Wilton), the Senate Chair of the legislature’s Committee on Children, who is supporting legislation that would help provide free meals for students who need them.
Henning and Filinskyy went over the impact of malnutrition — the lack of steady intake of nutrients — and how it could lead to such conditions as certain forms of cancers, dementia, Alzheimer’s, stroke and osteoporosis. They also shared their thoughts on what the district might be able to do to help.
While school lunches do include fresh fruit and vegetables, students do tend to gravitate toward pizza, chips and juice, the students said.
“Each of these have carbohydrates, and the sugar in that immediately causes a spike in blood sugar, and without any protein sources to balance this, when it goes up so quickly and then down again, it causes a crash later on,” Henning explained.
“During your next class, you may feel lethargic, you may feel tired. And this also, over a long period of time, can cause things like prediabetes. One in three students the age of 12 to 17 in America have prediabetes because of these crashes over time,” she said, citing her research.
Filinskyy said they noticed during their research that some students would sometimes skip breakfast and then, if they didn’t skip lunch entirely, would replace it with chips and juice.
“Our plan is not only to change the way lunches are served, but how they are perceived and to make sure that the students’ health gets a lot better by these nutrient-dense foods, and we hope to build strong connections with people who are equally as passionate on the topic as we are,” she said. “It’s a way to raise awareness, state- and countywide, about the urgency of this situation.”
Filinskyy and Henning reported that students enjoy making their own sandwiches — a healthier alternative to pizza — adding that they want to send out surveys to both parents and students to understand what they’re looking for. They said students enjoy pre-made salads, and that adding a salad bar so they can make their own might be an idea to consider.
Maher asked Filinskyy and Henning to include a question on their survey about what students would like to have for breakfast and report back, to which the girls agreed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, breakfast was provided free of charge for everyone, which had a significant impact, according to Maher.
“One, kids were not acting out as much during the school day because they had food in their stomachs when they started the day,” Maher explained during a phone interview with GOOD Morning Wilton. “I had people anecdotally telling me from different districts around the state that children, even though their parents are going to drive them to school, would get up and get on the bus so they could make it in time for breakfast with their friends.”
But budgetary restrictions brought an end to the program.
The students’ concerns align with a broader push at the state level to expand access to school meals.
Earlier this year, Gov. Ned Lamont announced that he had included $12.5 million in a budget proposal to provide all K-12 public school students with breakfast at no cost and eliminate reduced-price lunch charges, allowing students who currently qualify for reduced-price meals to receive lunch for free.
The proposal comes amid broader budget pressures and competing priorities in the legislature. As of early April, the proposal remains under review as part of ongoing state budget negotiations, and no final decisions have been made.
An estimated 13,000 students who currently qualify for reduced-price meals would receive lunch at no cost under the proposal, according to data provided by Lamont’s office. The proposal does not include free lunch for all students, though some advocates continue to push for universal free school meals.
Maher is a co-introducer of two bills introduced this season aimed at expanding access to free meals in schools — Senate Bill 6, An Act Concerning Supports for Children and Families and House Bill 5144, An Act Concerning Funding for School Meals — though school meal funding is also being considered through the state budget process.
SB6 seeks to increase funding to support access to no-cost breakfast and lunch through the school meal program, according to the bill.
HB5144 is a proposal to reimburse school districts for providing breakfast at no cost to all students and lunch at no cost to students currently eligible for reduced-price meals, according to the bill.
“Well, we do give kids Chromebooks, but we don’t feed them,” Maher said. “I’m just looking up that, when people complain about test scores and that other countries are doing better for their students, in most other developed countries they feed their children lunch. So, it does make a significant difference where children are getting food during the day and their test scores and outcomes.”
Lawmakers and education advocates have increasingly focused on expanding access to school meals in recent years, citing links between nutrition, student behavior and academic performance — the same concerns driving local students to push for change in their own schools.