Early life diet and feeding behaviors play an important role in establishing healthy food preferences and behaviors and are crucial for preventing childhood overweight and obesity. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is a key program that targets nutrition of low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children up to age 5. This issue brief gives an overview of the latest guidelines for feeding infants and young toddlers, and their application in the WIC setting. It is based on a full report of guidelines developed by an expert panel convened by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The feeding guidelines align with WIC’s core services, and are highly consistent with current WIC food packages. The brief also provides a set of recommendations for disseminating the infant and toddler feeding guidelines more broadly to organizations that work with caregivers and young children.
Feeding Infants and Young Toddlers: Using the Latest Evidence in WIC Settings
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