NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Breakfast Gets Top Billing at School Assembly Show

“What’s the most important meal of the day?” Dave Skale, the Nutrition Magician, asked several hundred squealing students in the Burbank Boulevard Elementary School auditorium in North Hollywood.

“Breakfast!” they yelled in unison.

Friday’s assembly stressing the importance of breakfast was part of a campaign by the Interfaith Hunger Coalition called “Start Your Head, Eat Breakfast.” During the presentation, the children were urged to eat at home or take advantage of the free breakfast program at school.

“It’s very important that kids eat breakfast,” said Carolyn Olney, associate director of the coalition. Children “do much better in class and on tests and they suffer less from headaches,” she said.

The “Start Your Head” campaign was aimed initially at high school students but has been broadened to include children, said Frank Tamborello, an advocate for the coalition. “As kids get older, they stop eating breakfast,” he said. “We try to show that eating breakfast is cool.”

The show was put on by participants in AmeriCorps, who are from 18 to 53 years old. A series of videos touting the coalition’s campaign began with one featuring a teen-age boy making himself a breakfast shake of milk, leftover pizza, a hot dog and a tomato.

The next one showed a classroom of students who did not eat breakfast. Their stomachs growl and contort as the teacher scowls at them. The third clip depicted the daydreams of a young woman who is so hungry that she keeps imagining breakfast foods popping up around her.

The next part of the program was a sing-along. The final act was a magic show, where a secret recipe transformed motor oil, a flower and spinach juice into a healthy breakfast of an apple, a small box of cereal and a bagel.