What’s for breakfast at your house? For too many of us, it’s a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, hardly a balanced or nutritious way to start the day. It’s not healthful for anyone, but for children, whose bodies and brains are still developing, the impact of a skimpy breakfast – or no breakfast – can be severe and long-lasting.

Children who don’t eat a nutritious breakfast may develop a number of problems, ranging from poor school performance and absenteeism to dental cavities, obesity and lowered resistance to disease. And poor dietary habits established in childhood often become lifelong obstacles to good health.

Yet too many Maine children start their days in just that way, according to a recent report from the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization devoted to ending hunger and undernutrition in the United States. The 2004 FRAC “School Breakfast Scorecard,” released in November, ranks the 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to their success in providing breakfast to low-income students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Maine ranked 25th in the 2002- 2003 school year, and 24th in 2003-2004, reflecting a rise in participation from 19,184 children to 20,085.

But don’t get too excited about the small improvement. Only about 40.5 percent of Maine children who qualified for free and reduced-price lunch ate breakfast at school last year. Even top-ranked Oregon fed breakfast to just 55 percent of its lunch-eligible students. Wisconsin – somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, for a farm state – ranked last, with just 23 percent.

“No child should have to start the school day hungry to learn but unable to do so because of a hungry stomach,” according to a prepared statement from FRAC president James Weill. “Recent progress is promising, but we need the nation, states, cities and schools to accelerate their work to reach the many millions of students who still need access to a good breakfast.”

Why aren’t Maine kids getting the breakfast they should? According to FRAC, it might be because Maine is one of just 11 states that have no mandated support for the school breakfast program. In most other states, one or more of the following initiatives make it easier for schools and communities to get low-income kids lined up, signed up and eating their Cheerios:

. Laws requiring all or certain schools to participate in the federal school breakfast program.

. State funding that supports the school breakfast program.

. State funding that supports free breakfast to all students in certain schools (this reduces stigma).

. A requirement that schools report on participation in the breakfast program.

. A requirement that schools set aside a reasonable block of time for students to eat breakfast.

. Laws that require schools and communities to advertise and recruit for their breakfast programs.

Not only are there no such mandates in Maine, but, while the state budget provides close to $1 million a year for school lunch programs, there is no state funding available for school breakfast.

Almost all public schools in Maine serve lunch, and about 82 percent of those that do also offer breakfast. Children whose households earn up to 130 percent of the federal poverty limit (that means about $24,500 per year for a family of four) can eat for free. Those whose families earn slightly more, up to 185 percent of the limit or $34,873 for a family of four, qualify for a reduced-price meal.

In Caribou, school food service director Louise Bray has been feeding hungry children for 15 years. In November, almost 1,000 of her 1,661 students in kindergarten through 12th grade ate school lunch each day. Almost half of the school lunch students, or about 500 children, paid a reduced price of 40 cents or nothing at all. Full price for lunch is $1.40 in grades one through four, and $1.75 for grades five through 12.

During the same month, only 200 Caribou youngsters ate school breakfast, which costs 85 cents at full price. About 160 of the students qualified for the reduced price of 30 cents or for a free meal. What’s on the morning menu? Cereal and milk, 100 percent fruit juice, French toast, pancakes, bagels and cream cheese, scrambled eggs, muffins, oatmeal and fruit. Not all of it every day, but in combinations intended to appeal to fussy youngsters and that meet federal nutrition guidelines.

Bray said Wednesday that some children and teens who qualify for reduced-cost meals have breakfast at home with their families, and others are too busy outside to come in and eat before school starts for the day. Because school breakfast is generally perceived as a program for low-income families, as students get older they get more sensitive to the scrutiny of their peers, she said. That pride can override a growling stomach.

“We have too many kids who come to school with an empty belly,” Bray said. “And we all know kids can’t learn when they’re hungry.”

Barbara Raymond, director of school nutrition services for the city of Augusta and a member of Gov. John Baldacci’s Commission to Study Public Health, said Wednesday that schools could increase participation through better marketing of their breakfast programs.

Making space in the busy school day for a brief breakfast period would help too, she said. Teachers could help by allowing children to eat during the first few minutes of class, but many teachers balk at the mess and diversion.

And, Raymond said, actively encouraging more Maine children to eat school breakfast could be a component of the public health plan the governor’s commission is working on. “The focus has been more on the problem of [obesity],” Raymond said. “We’ve been looking at what’s available in schools that shouldn’t be, talking about how to limit access to soda and candy.” Since a nutritious breakfast promotes better diet choices throughout the day, she said, the state should consider it a factor in controlling childhood obesity.

Louise Bray said she would like to see the day when all schools offer free breakfast and lunch to all students, every day, all year long, regardless of family income. It would eliminate social stigma and improve student health and academic performance, she said. Pay for it with local, state and federal taxes, she suggested, the way other school costs are paid.

“We don’t charge for sports or music programs or to ride the school bus,” Bray pointed out. “Why should we charge any student for this vital part of the school day?”