Two million women and seven million children will now have greater access to a variety of nutritious food options, thanks to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) expansion of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
The revision of the program – which provides supplemental food vouchers to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, and infants and children through the age of five – began in 2007 when fruit and vegetable allowances were introduced, and was finalized last week. Previously, women using the program vouchers could only buy limited basics such as milk, infant formula, eggs, bread and tuna fish, among other items. The comprehensive expansion will allow women to use food vouchers to purchase more whole grain items, yogurt as a partial milk substitute, and fresh produce instead of jarred infant food for older children. It will also boost each child’s fruit and vegetable purchase allowance by 30 percent, or $2 per month, and it will give states and local WIC agencies more flexibility to decide what to offer.
“The updates to the WIC food package make pivotal improvements to the program and better meet the diverse nutritional needs of mothers and their young children,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. According to the USDA, research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already shown greater health outcomes and lower obesity rates in low-income preschoolers that are possibly linked to these changes.
This is the first comprehensive revision of WIC since 1980, and it coincides with the program’s 40th anniversary. The changes are based on more modern nutrition science and recommendations from the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They will be implemented in phases through April 2015.
Media Resources: US Department of Agriculture 2/28/14; Reuters 2/28/14
