Rethinking WIC
An Evaluation of the Women, Infants, and Children Program
Douglas J. Besharov, Peter Germanis | AEI Press
January 01, 2001
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  • Title:

    Rethinking WIC

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  • Paperback ISBN:

    0844741493

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  • 180 Paperback pages

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View the summary, press release, and key points.

In Rethinking WIC, Douglas J. Besharov and Peter Germanis analyze the research on the effectiveness of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Their assessment challenges the conventional wisdom that WIC is a uniquely successful program and demonstrates that many claims about WIC's effectiveness are misleading exaggerations. Besharov and Germanis do not argue that WIC should be abandoned, but that policymakers should undertake a sustained effort to make the program more effective.

Key Findings about WIC

  • Makes at least a small improvement in the diets and behaviors of some pregnant women, especially the most disadvantaged, which may lead to some better birth outcomes
  • Increases the nutritional intake of some infants, especially those who would not have been breastfed, but may also reduce breastfeeding, which could have negative health consequences
  • Makes little significant differences in the diets for most one- to four-year-old children may help some children whose intake of nutrients might otherwise be inadequate
  • Is largely irrelevant to the most serious nutritional problem facing disadvantaged Americans: overweight

Six Programmatic Reforms

  • Target benefits to more needful families, the group that seems to benefit most from WIC
  • Give state and local WIC agencies the flexibility to intensify the basic food package and nutritional counseling
  • Add a focus on preventing overweight, perhaps the most serious problem facing low-income children and parents
  • Serve children over age four, especially because of the growing problem of overweight
  • Increase directive counseling, because many contemporary nutritional problems are caused by unhealthy behaviors rather than by lack of food
  • Try alternative service providers, such as health care providers, that offer integrated services

Four Research Priorities

  • The children's program, about which little reliable research exists
  • Expanded services at the "policy margin" for pregnant women, infants, and older children
  • More aggressive interventions to improve unhealthy diets
  • Alternative health-related service providers that take a more comprehensive approach to health and nutrition

Douglas J. Besharov is the Joseph J. and Violet Jacobs Scholar in Social Welfare Studies at AEI and a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs.

Peter Germanis is a research associate at AEI and assistant director of the University of Maryland's Welfare Reform Academy.

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