The simple truth about school breakfast is this: students will only benefit from the good nutrition it provides if they eat it. For that to happen, school breakfasts not only have to look, taste and smell good, but they also have to be served at a time and in a place that makes sense for the real lives of today’s kids. Some students have such long commutes to school that they don’t have enough time to eat before the first bell. For them, breakfast served after the start of the school day—either during class or between classes—works best. Other students go to schools with cafeterias that are too small to serve large numbers at once or are stigmatized as the place the “poor kids” have to eat.

Forcing kids to choose between eating and being teased by their classmates or not eating and staying anonymous is no choice at all. In these cases, serving meals from kiosks in the hallway or in the classroom eliminates stigma and increases the chance that more kids will start their day with a nutritious meal.