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Steven Rowe, who lives in Portland, 12/16/2007

Well, every day in the state of Maine thousands of children go to school hungry. And many stay that way until lunch. These children pay dearly for missing breakfast. They pay with stomachaches, headaches, listless bodies and anemia. They pay with reduced attention, memory and visual recall. They pay with reduced verbal fluency, creativity and problem-solving skills.

In short, these children pay for their hunger with lost opportunity for learning.

In July, the Kennebec Journal ran a series of articles about hunger in Maine. I was moved by the stories and startling statistics about hungry school children. I recall the story of an Augusta elementary special education teacher who said that one out of four of her students is always hungry. That teacher, as well as others, spent her own money to feed hungry students.

In Maine, almost nine out of 10 public schools that participate in the national school lunch program also participate in the national school breakfast program. Only about 32,000 students, however, are provided breakfast at school each day (with 72 percent qualifying for reduced or free breakfast). That compares to more than 106,000 students who are provided lunch at school each day (with 49 percent qualifying for reduced or free lunch).

We can all agree that parents should feed their children a healthy breakfast before sending them to school. But that agreement is no consolation for the thousands of Maine children who actually leave home each morning with empty stomachs.

Are these children somehow at fault? Should we blame them because they have trouble paying attention in class or because they become withdrawn, weepy and cranky? Is it their fault that they do not perform well on exams? Or that they often end up in the school nurse's office because of the pain in their stomachs or their heads?

Fewer than 5 percent of Maine children are born with brain impairments, yet more than 15 percent of our public school students receive special education services. Why is that? Why do so many children who are born with perfect health exhibit mental, emotional and behavioral disorders in elementary and secondary grades?

We know that much of the answer lies with the development of children's brains and the quality of caregiving that children receive in their early years. But could the answer also lie, at least in part, with the lack of proper nutrition? You bet it could.

Proper nutrition provides the means for effective brain operation and renewal. Like the rest of the body, the brain depends on specific nutrients to carry out its role. Without sustained proper nutrition, the brain cannot fully develop and carry out its self-sustaining activity.

A student who regularly misses breakfast is not only at risk of becoming tired, inattentive and performing poorly on tests. That student is also at risk of a future of mediocre intelligence, poorly developed verbal skills and other physical, mental and emotional problems.

Each year, our nation spends hundreds of billions of dollars trying to fix problems that don't have to occur -- problems such as developmental and health disorders, substance abuse, domestic abuse and homelessness.

We must do a better job focusing our resources on preventing these problems. One proven way is to ensure that children are fed a nutritious breakfast before they start the school day. Feeding hungry school children is not only the right thing to do from a moral and social perspective; it is also one of the very best economic investments we can make.

We live in the most prosperous nation on earth, but not everyone is sharing in our national bounty. We can and must do better by our children. We can and we must ensure that we alleviate their hunger when they arrive at school each morning. Sure, there will be financial and logistical challenges. But just think of the benefits.

During this holiday season, let us remember our hungry children and let us resolve to feed them.

Steven Rowe, who lives in Portland, is Maine's attorney general.

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