A Healthy Breakfast for Schoolchildren When it comes to making certain that children start the school day with a good breakfast, New York City could learn a lot from Newark, Detroit and Los Angeles. Administrators there are helping children in need - 10 million in the country - get a healthy breakfast at their desks. A report in January from the Food Research and Action Center, an antihunger advocacy group, ranked New York City last among 26 urban areas in making enough free breakfasts available to low-income students. Of New York's 1,750 schools, 380 provide the morning meals. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has stalled expansion of the program after a health department report suggested that some youngsters get two breakfasts - one at home or on the way to school and another at school. City officials argue that two breakfasts could be adding to the obesity problem. But as the City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, has rightly explained, depriving hungry children of good breakfasts because they might eat a candy bar or a bowl of cereal first makes no sense. A study from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2008 said that the nation's School Breakfast Program "is highly effective" in helping children learn in school, eat more nutritious diets and lead generally healthier lives. Other school districts get it. Administrators in Los Angeles County Schools are working to make healthy breakfasts available free to 70 percent of their students. Newark offers free breakfasts in the classroom to all of its 24,000 elementary school students and to all students in two of the city's 16 high schools. Newark school administrators also have an intense outreach program at the start of each term to let parents know about the breakfasts. That all makes good, healthy sense.