Last year, the Education Ministry announced plans to provide free breakfast to all students regardless of their socio-economic background.

However, acting Education Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said this would be "unfair" as rich children will also be getting free food, and said the programme would be retailored so that only poor children will receive the free breakfast.

A paper published today by Khazanah Research Institute acknowledge that feeding all children despite their economic backgrounds would be costly, but there were also many benefits.

The paper titled "Understanding School Feeding in Malaysia" was prepared by Jarud Romadan Khalidi and Tan Zhai Gen.

"The continual association of school feeding with assisting the poor is misleading and ignores the programme's immense potentials in many areas.

"While the universal provision of school meals will rack up a hefty bill, we must recognise that school feeding is not only a nutrition intervention but also an investment in children.

"Various studies have found impressive benefit-cost ratios for most school feeding programmes, many of which would be even higher due to unaccounted impacts," Jarud and Tan wrote.

Proper nutrition and children not being hungry during class, they noted, makes learning easier.

They also note that for many children who skip breakfast, not having enough time or having no appetite was cited as the main reason.

Besides improving their education, the authors said a universal food programme would bring children from different backgrounds together, which can promote better understanding between each other.

They said that feeding poor children only can lead to "school food shaming" where students who get help are stigmatised and ridiculed for receiving food aid.

"In this case, recipients do not eat the food and the objectives are not achieved despite incurring costs for implementation," they said.

The authors said this, however, can be reversed by feeding all children as was done in New York City in 2003.

Meanwhile, they said a universal food programme can also address a double malnutrition problem that affects both rich and poor children.

"As Malaysia faces the threat of the double burden of malnutrition, school feeding can educate kids on the importance and benefits of adopting a healthy diet.

"While undernutrition is arguably more concentrated among the poor, the opposite may be true for obesity. Expanding the programme to include all students can be a solution," they said.

While the research paper did not thoroughly analyse the existing school food programmes in the country, it said that one way healthy eating can be encouraged is for school canteens to only sell food items that are approved for student consumption.

They cited the Healthy Food in School Programme - which is paid for by parents - as an example that can be examined.

However, despite the benefits, it said the cost of a universal programme can have unintended consequences.

They cited how in South Korea, funds for physical education had been cut when a universal food programme was implemented. This led to the reduction of number of students who were physically fit.

"The developments related to children's health in Malaysia and the pros and cons of universalism versus targeting must be understood clearly to design school feeding programmes that assist those in need.

"If better designed and implemented, a universal school feeding programme would be an important step to better address various challenges facing the next generation. Our children are our future," they said.