Nutrition Policy for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program

Healthy Eating Research supported this special issue of Nutrients focused on examining the influence of WIC nutrition policies on the nutritional status, dietary behavior, and health outcomes of participants. There are a number of policies embedded within the WIC program that can influence the nutritional status of the participants. These include nutrition policies related to breastfeeding promotion, nutrition education programming, nutrition education delivery, the nutritional value of the approved food items, and food store authorization. Modified policies were put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it difficult for WIC participants to access services. The papers in this special issue examine such topics as program participants, online ordering, benefit redemption, and breastfeeding outcomes.

Related Research

September 2024

Water Is K’é: Learning from the Navajo Community to Promote Early Child Health

Drinking water instead of sugary drinks is key to reducing health disparities. Since beverage habits are shaped by complex personal, community, and environmental factors, community input is critical to design any intervention promoting water. The research team worked with community partners to design a program to promote healthy beverage habits among young Navajo children. The More

August 2024

Community-based diet and obesity-related policy, system, and environmental interventions for obesity prevention during the first 1000 days: A scoping review

Community-based policy, systems, and environmental interventions have the potential to reduce modifiable risk factors for obesity early in life. The purpose of this scoping review was to characterize the breadth, generalizability, and methodological quality of community-based diet and obesity-related policy, system, and environmental interventions during the first 1000 days of life, from pregnancy to 24 months More

July 2024

Shared Perceptions on Upstream Factors that Influence Water and Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption Among Hispanic Families in the Greater Washington, DC, Metro Area: Qualitative Results From Focus Group Discussions

The study aimed to describe how Hispanic parents currently living in the greater Washington, DC, metro area and born outside of the United States, perceived upstream factors that influenced their current beverage choice. Six qualitative focus groups were conducted in Spanish in 2021. The five key findings were: Growing up (in their countries of origin More