ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program helps many families every day and recently, the program celebrated a major milestone in Kansas.
Last Thursday, Gov. Laura Kelly signed a proclamation honoring the 50th anniversary of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for WIC in Kansas. Since the WIC program was first introduced in 1974, it has helped Kansas families access healthy, nutritional foods to better support the development of their children, according to a release from the State of Kansas.
“WIC is critical to providing infants and children necessary resources,” Gov. Kelly noted in a release from the State of Kansas. “I am grateful for the positive impact the program has made on Kansas families through education, food access, and other support for the past 50 years. I look forward to the program's continued success. The WIC program provides funds to nearly seven million families across the country. The 2022 WIC Participant and Program Characteristics report found that over half of all WIC participants reported an income below 100 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.”
According to the National WIC Association (NWICA), WIC was piloted in 1972 as a supplemental food program aimed at improving the health of pregnant mothers, infants and children in response to growing concern over malnutrition among many poverty-stricken mothers and young children, and the first WIC site opened in Kentucky just two years later. By 1974, WIC was operating in 45 states in the U.S., ultimately becoming a permanent entity in 1975.
“In 1975, eligibility was extended to non-breastfeeding women (up to 6 months postpartum) and children up to age 5. WIC had initially provided supplemental foods to children up to age 4 and to breast-feeding postpartum mothers,” the NWICA noted. “In 1978, legislation introduced new elements into the program, including a requirement of nutrition education being provided, supplemental foods should contain nutrients found lacking in the target population, and have relatively low levels of fat, sugar, and salt, and states being required to coordinate referrals to social services including immunization, alcohol and drug abuse prevention, child abuse counseling, and family planning.”
WIC’s work continued into the 1990s and more modern times, the NWICA noted.
“In 1992, WIC introduced an enhanced food package for exclusively breastfeeding mothers to further promote breastfeeding, and in 1997, the USDA implemented Loving Support Makes Breastfeeding Work campaign to increase breastfeeding rates among WIC mothers and improve public support of breastfeeding,” the NWICA noted. “In 2004, the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor initiative was launches, which sees women with breastfeeding experience and training (often past WIC participants) became counselors to support other women learning to breastfeed. Then, in 2009, based on Institute of Medicine recommendations, USDA introduced a new food package with foods consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for American and established dietary recommendations for infants and children over two years of age. Fruits, vegetables, and culturally sensitive substitutes for WIC foods are now part of the WIC food package. In addition, mothers who exclusively breastfeed receive more healthy foods with the enhanced WIC food package for exclusively breastfeeding mothers.”
Since 2010, WIC has served more than 1.4 million women, infants, and children in Kansas, the State of Kansas release noted, and one in 30 individuals is currently eligible for the program. Each month, WIC serves 48,000 individuals in 102 Kansas counties.
“WIC is a tremendous asset to families across Kansas,” KDHE Secretary Janet Stanek noted in the State of Kansas release. “I am proud of the work our agency and the local health departments across the state have done over the last 50 years to ensure families and children improve their nutrition-related health outcomes. We would not have been so successful in those outcomes without the many partnerships we have forged with health professionals, organizations, and community leaders. The WIC program was initially developed from concerns about widespread malnutrition among low-income mothers and children. With a shift in thinking, access to healthy food became a public health policy. In the same way medicine is prescribed for other illnesses, food is prescribed for malnutrition. This perspective saw the government venture into tackling the malnutrition crisis with proactive policy, allowing more Americans to receive the nutrition they need in their most critical formative years.”
In addition to offering nutrition education and healthy foods to enable families to make lifelong healthy eating and lifestyle choices, the WIC Program is deeply involved in addressing other maternal and child health areas.
“This includes promoting breastfeeding as the optimum choice for infant feeding and providing support to lactating parents and their infants,” the State of Kansas release noted. “Education is also provided to participants about the dangers of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, reinforcing the importance of childhood immunizations and screening for lead poisoning.”
For more information on WIC in Kansas, please visit KDHE’s WIC Web site.
