THE Department of Education has nourished more than 63,000 undernourished school children with its breakfast feeding program.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said the feeding program aims to address undernutrition and short-term hunger syndrome among public school children.

He said public school children find it hard to pay attention to the lessons because of hunger and are in danger of dropping out.

The program was initially implemented in Pangasinan, Bohol and Lanao del Norte. It  will be expanded to 15 more divisions during the school year  based on the prevalence of undernutrition in these divisions and the  capability  of  school heads to manage and administer  the program. 

The new beneficiaries are schools from the divisions   of Quirino, Zambales, Batangas, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Sorsogon, Kabankalan City, Bacolod City, Negros Oriental, Leyte, Zamboanga del Norte, Davao Oriental, Sultan Kudarat, Surigao del Norte, Kalinga, Maguindanao, and Quezon City.

The target is to bring back to good nutritional status at least 70% of the beneficiaries at the end of the 100-120 feeding days.

“Our specific objective is to ensure 85 to 100% attendance among the target pupils and improve their health and nutrition values and behavior,” Luistro said.

The breakfast feeding program was first implemented in 1997 and has since shifted to address the  more serious problem of undernutrition – a global concern commonly causing death among children.

According to the 2010 report of DepEd’s Health and Nutrition Center, 15.58% of children in public elementary schools are undernourished.

This condition, according to the World Health Organization, has ill-effects on the acade-mic performance of schoolchildren.