For as long as we can remember, many people have been experiencing hardships and worries, with little to no income being one of the largest. In the U.S there are a few programs that can help populations facing these difficulties obtain imperitive things they need. One of these benificial programs is WIC. WIC stands for Women, Infants and Children; and is a special supplemental nutrition program that targets nutritionally at risk mothers infants and children, due to low income. The program helps aid families in the effort to provide nutritious foods, information and counseling on healthy eating, and to provide referrels to other healthcare and government benifit programs like welfare and social services. (Food and Nutrition service, 2013)
The history of WIC dates back to the 1960s when many americans were suffering from malnutrition due to low income. In 1969 the nations concern with malnutrition, especially in mothers and children had greatly increased and the USDA established a commodity supplemental food program that would benifit pregnant women, infants and children. the legistlation formerly authorized the special supplemental food program as a 2 year pilot program in 1972 by an ammendement to the Child Nutrition act of 1966, and in 1975 WIC was established as a permanent program. (Oliveira, Racine, Olmsted, & Ghelfi, 2002)
The purpose of the WIC, as stated before is to improve the health of nutritionally at risk women infants and children through adequate nutritional help. According the the USDA Wic has improved birth outcomes with longer pregnancies, higher birth weights, lower infant mortalities, and more mothers receiving prenatal care. Also the improvement of savi...
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...e volunteer opportuities consist of answering phones, filing chats, greeting wic participants, and reading and conducting activities for children while their parents are occupied. The requirements include being able to read and write, ability to work well with others, enjoy working with families and children receiving wic and sensitivity to cultural diversity. (Wic office, 2014). The benifits of volunteers are lower administration costs, stretching resoures, and increasing the quality and quantity of the services that re provides to participants.
Furthermore the community greatly benifits from Wic in that participants are healthier with the nutritional assistance and healthcare referrels that the program supplies. There are also a large amount of savings in healthcare costs as a result of prenatal and postpardum care for mothers which makes for healthier babies.
According to Dolgoff and Feldstein (2003), “the needs and goals of the Food Stamp Program are to alleviate hunger and malnutrition by enabling low-income households to buy a nutritious adequate diet” (p. 132). The program also improved the market for local merchants to produce food for eligible low-income households and other agencies such as the School Lunch Program which safeguard the health and wel...
The idea of a program which helps low income pregnant women and children under the age of five, started to be tossed around in the 1960’s. There were many studies that saw hunger as a big problem. There were also major events such as the Poor Peoples’ March on Washington DC, and a CBS documentary called “Hunger In America,” brought light to the issue. In 1969 the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and health, gathered to discuss possible solutions to the hunger due to poverty. The overwhelming consensus was that there needed to be some type of assistance for pregnant women and children living in poverty. On September 26,
also known as WIC supplies almost fifty percent of the infant formula used in the US at no
...ron, protein, calcium, and vitamin A and C, increases immunization rates, improves diet quality, and increases access to regular health care. WIC also provides a variety of education, for example, nutritional education, breastfeeding education, and health education. Benefits of low-income families qualifying for WIC are that WIC provides formula for infants to mothers that are unable to breastfeed. WIC also provides expecting mothers, breastfeeding mothers, and children with iron fortified and nutritional foods such as: cereals, milk, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, eggs, juices and many more.
...of the migrant farm workers in the United States. Some opponents of the WIC program and its benefits believe that WIC is not doing enough to help this group. The policies in place and special provisions of the WIC program for migrant farm workers is an asset for the migrant farm worker community and has been proven beneficial in reducing nutritional and health risks for the eligible participants. The continued exposure and improvement of the implementation by each state will continue to increase the number of people aided by this program.
As the world population grows so does the amount of people that live without the proper amount of nutrition and food. Hunger in America can be hard to recognize and many people do not realize that hunger and malnutrition is a problem that many Americans face every day. America is the land of plenty and one of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world, however is well known that is subject to problem such as starvation, considered as “third-world problem”. For decades, Americans have gone above and beyond to aid other countries that were faced with problems such as malnutrition and hunger. Sadly, the US has failed to aid them and millions are currently suffering from hunger. In addition, with how the economy is now, the effects of hunger are getting worse every day. Many Americans are relying and most of them depend on food stamps and private organizations to help with this crisis. The documentary, “A Place at the Table” by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush present some issues and real life story to explain what is really happening and how hunger and obesity are not problems on opposite ends of a spectrum, but are in fact intricately linked. Poor nutrition, health problem and poverty are all related.
Food insecurity does not discriminate; it reaches many segments of society (Whitney, DeBruyne, Pinna, & Rolfes, 2007). Even through closely related to poverty, not all that have food insecurities are in poverty. Often it is the working poor that are hit the hardest. The working poor are a group that despite having a job, there income is too low to meet their need or that of their family. Most of the working poor (56%) live in families with children, so that the poverty of these workers affects many others as well (Problems Facing the Working Poor, Kim 1999). Many lower to middle class families will temporarily struggle with food insecurity at various times during the year. For these families government assistance may not immediately available. Appling for Supplemental Nutrition Assistanc...
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
As a consequence, low-income households suffer more health problems due to the lack of income. "Despite social assistance programs such as TANF, Women, Infants and children (WIC), food stamps, and Meals on Wheels, malnutrition exists primary among the old and the young in the United States". The American health care system which is based on ability to pay is not adequate to provide immediate services to poor people. Among the common health problems associated with children in poverty include asthma, lead poisoning and vision deficiency. (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007)
“Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive process with important implications for the health of mothers” Statement taken from the world health organization publication on the nutrition of exclusive breastfeeding.
Department of Agriculture estimated that 17 million of US households in America were food insecure. This means that the households a difficult time during the course of the year providing enough food for all their family members due to a lack of resources. Fortunately, there are food distribution programs that aid individuals and households with the food insecurities such Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), as well as Foodbanks around the united states. SNAP formally known as the Food Stamp Program, SNAP provides help to 46 million people each year. WIC is a supplemental nutrition program that woman who qualify receive when pregnant, this benefit is limited from child’s birth up to up to 5 years after their child is born. Mother receives milk for the baby as well as nutritious items for herself like milk, cheese, cereals, juices, and vegetables. Foodbanks are also located all over America; however, struggle with keeping up with the increase of those in need., Twelve states exhibited statistically significantly higher household food-insecurity rates than the U.S. national average 2013-2015 13.7
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
Childhood hunger problem occurs everywhere in this world and we people need to start helping these children if we have the ability to improve the issue.
This program helps so many individuals who are unable to provide for themselves and their family, that without it, they could potentially be out on the street, sick and hungry. Even though there are other supplemental programs that they could try to receive, WIC provides the essentials that are geared specifically for your family's needs.
Alaimo, K., Olson, C. M., Frongillo, E. A., & Briefel, R. R. (2001). Food insufficiency, family income, and