RUNNIN HEAD: Theories in action: Incorporating diversity into planning

WIC Program

Nancy Fuentes

Sonoma State University

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WIC

Every child comes from a different family with a different language, socioeconomic

status, ethnicity, they might live in different neighborhoods or might have a family member with

a disability. These are all things that may affect a childs development mentally, academically, or

even physically. These are all reasons why its so important that we acknowledge diversity in a

classroom and help families so their children can have a positive development (NAYC standard

b). For this reason, we can often find programs, schools, and agencies that will help families find

the resources they need. As I was looking for a program that works with families and young

children of diverse families I came across so many that I had such a hard time choosing one. I

finally came across the program WIC which really caught my attention because I really liked

how they were helping family all over the US.

WIC is a federal funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program which provides federal

grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutritional education. These can

be found everywhere in California, as well as other states, the nearest ones to us are in Santa

Rosa and Petaluma. This program was established permanently in 1974 and has since then

earned its reputation as one of the most successful federally funded nutrition programs in the US.

WICs goal is to improve the nutritional and health status of low income women and children

and have indeed seen results in improved birth outcomes, diet-related outcomes, immunization

rates, improved cognitive development, and overall nutritional status.

WIC offers a variety of resources that helps improve the health of women, infants and

children. They offer nutrition education in classes or individually at WIC offices and offer

helpful tips for healthy eating and active living. This is something that would benefit both the

child and the family because they arent only getting these tips for one individual but for the
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whole family. Since they also offer these resources to pregnant woman during their pregnancy,

WIC offers support and help with breastfeeding by offering them guidance, breastfeeding

educational materials, breastfeeding aids like breast pumps, breast shells, and etc. WIC strongly

encourages that mothers breastfeed their infants and offer the necessary support that these new

mothers need for success. This is really important for the infant because its one of the most

important things in a healthy development. WIC also helps these families in finding a doctor,

immunizations and health insurance. Immunizing children is very important in helping them stay

healthy because it protects them against certain diseases, helping them stay healthy. WICs role is

finding out about a childs need for immunizations and sharing that information with the childs

parents and helping them find a place where the child can get immunized. Finally, WIC also

provinces supplemental foods through food packages to meet the nutritional needs of low income

families. They do this by giving each family a check with a certain amount of money with a list

of things they can get like milk, eggs, cereal, milk formula, juice, etc.

However, WIC only serves women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or recently had a

baby, children from birth to the age of 5, migrant families, and families with a low to medium

income. In order to be eligible to apply one must be under the categories I just listed, they must

live in the state, must meet the income requirement, and if they have a nutritional risk.

Nevertheless, I found it astounding that WIC promises not to discriminate and to treat everyone

the same regardless of ones sexual orientation, color, race, religion, political affiliation, gender,

disability, medical condition, or ancestry, which I found important because the purpose of this

project was to find a program that served families and children of diverse backgrounds. As I was

looking at their Bureau of CENSUS we could see demographics of those who participated in the

program in which they had characteristics like their age, race, marital status, educational
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attainment, labor force status, monthly family income, and poverty level. It was very surprising

to see that in the category for monthly family income some women were earing less than $500.

This goes to show that programs like this, that help women and their families get the nutrients

they need in food and health, is very important because it helps women that can barely support

their children with the necessary resources and nutrients so they can live and grow as healthy

individuals.

Bronfenbrenner, a theorist that developed the concept of the ecological model, which

looks at how a childs development is influenced by the childs environment influences. It

consists of 4 categories the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and the macrosystem. For this

program the microsystem, which in the ecological system is described as the childs immediate

surroundings, is being greatly influenced by the program because its is helping the child

individually by promoting their good health with the resources its being given, especially since

between their birth and the age is a crucial time for their development. WIC helps children and

infants by reducing premature births, infant mortality, low birth weight, anemia and increasing

childhood immunization rates by 32%. This program is also influencing their exosystem, which

in the ecological model are elements that influences the child indirectly, because it is a resource

for the families in the community on helping families get informed on what is healthy.

Furthermore, it also connects back to one of the chapters we read for class on culture and

socialization where it describes how the amount of attention, and how family address their

childrens needs vary across cultures and ethnic groups. This goes to show why in the CENSUS

we could also see what race, and ethnic groups were participating the most in the program and

how the highest participating groups were mostly white and Mexicans. According to the parents

cultural belief systems, we could assume the number of participants was due to how each mother
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from different cultural backgrounds address their childs needs on how they on how they seek

advice from experts, discipline their children, and etc.

WIC is a really great program with a lot of benefits and resources for families of diverse

backgrounds however, one thing they do limit are their services to only women and not men.

Although women are benefiting from this program because they are the ones giving birth and

breastfeeding there are a lot of single dads that are left with newborn babies that would also

benefit from this program and could use a lot of the resources being provided by WIC. For this

reason, I believe WIC could better serve families of diverse backgrounds if they allowed men to

apply to their program. In addition, WIC should also promote themselves more in community

centers, schools, or on newspaper articles so more families are informed what they do, what they

provide and who is eligible. They could also get feedback from those who have participated in

the program for more than a year so they can see how they can improve their program. Now

more than ever, since child life spans have gotten shorter and obesity rates are getting higher, is it

so important that parents really take into consideration what they are allowing their children to

eat. Programs like WIC really make a difference in the lives of children and families because

they are helping these children live a healthier life which will lead to a more positive

development.
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Works Cited

Bureau of the Census. (1995). Mothers Who Receive WIC Benefits Fertility and

Socioeconomic Characteristics.