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American Public Health Association
133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition
December 10-14, 2005
Philadelphia, PA
APHA 2005
 
Session: The New WIC Food Package: What are the Next Steps?
4129.0: Tuesday, December 13, 2005: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM
Panel Discussion
The New WIC Food Package: What are the Next Steps?
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides supplemental foods, nutrition education, and referrals to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women; infants; and children (ages 1 to 5 years). Despite many changes that have occurred since WIC's inception in 1972, the WIC food packages remain largely unchanged. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to form a committee to complete a two-phase evaluation of the current WIC food packages. The goal of this evaluation was to develop a set of practical recommendations for changes in the foods or amounts of foods provided to better address the nutritional deficits and challenges of the WIC target population and to enhance food acceptability and nutritional quality. Phase I included an assessment of nutritional needs of WIC subgroups and development of a set of criteria to use in revising the food packages. Phase 2 included developing specific recommendations related to changes in the food packages. In this session, members of the IOM Committee to Review the WIC Food Packages will present highlights from their final report, including findings and recommendations from both phases. Jay Hirschman from USDA will describe the process that it is going through to adopt the changes and feedback from the National WIC Association and the Louisiana State WIC Program will be provided concerning the feasibility and acceptability of the new changes.
Learning Objectives: The participant will be able to: 1. Describe the highlights from the IOM report on the WIC food packages 2. Understand the process of adopting changes and providing feedback on the WIC food packages
Panelist(s):Anna Maria Siega-Riz, PhD, RD
Angela Odoms-Young, PhD
Jay D. Hirschman, MPH, CNS
Debra Luthy, MS, LDN, RD
12:30 PMNew WIC food package: What are the next steps?
Anna Maria Siega-Riz, PhD, RD, Angela Odoms-Young, PhD, Jay D. Hirschman, MPH, CNS, Debra Luthy
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organized by:Food and Nutrition
Endorsed by:Maternal and Child Health

The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA