In April 1968, more than 110 cities in the United States of America experienced a great showdown from America’s poor people. All this was triggered by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr on the 4th of that month. With disbelief, poor Americans jumped in the streets demonstrating and confronting the policemen. This was different from what Luther was organizing. He had held a conference with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to train the poor people on a nonviolent demonstration that would force Congress to pass the Economic Bill of Rights. This would enable poor people to access better health facilities, housing, food, etc. It was referred to as the Poor People’s March of Washington DC. Although King died before the riot, his dream acted as a lesson and an agent for the formation of several programs later that would assist the poor. Among them was the Women, Infants, and Children program (USDA, 2009).
Apart from Washington’s Poor People’s March, several other factors led to the formation of the WIC program. This includes the documentary entitled “Hunger in America.” By CBS. These events brought to the limelight the real situation of the suffering Americans (USDA, 2009. this triggered a meeting between several physicians, officials from the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the USDA in Washington to discuss the state of women. In the meeting, the physicians narrated growing instances of women, some of them pregnant, being hospitalized because of malnutrition-related causes. It was from here that there was born a decision to form food commissaries that would be attached to neighboring clinics. Women with food deficiency syndromes would have medical practitioners prescribing appropriate food for them and the prescription would be used as the voucher with which they would receive food from the commissaries. USDA enacted the first commissary program later the same year in California while at the same time Johns Hopkins’ Dr. David Paige started another program independently in Baltimore (USDA, 2009).
WIC’s major aim of formation in 1972 was to ensure that all women, infants, and children were accessible to the most appropriate nutrition. This formed the basis of their major policy. To ensure that they achieved this target, they enacted one of their policies which was a medical formula for all participants of the WIC program. In this policy, they would ensure that all women, children, and infants who were participants under this program would receive medical and diet prescriptions from qualified medical practitioners in relation to their needs (USDA 2009).
The purpose of this policy was to ensure that infants who could not access breastfeeding for a reason or another could get access to the required nutrients for the well-being of their health. In addition, children who are in dire need of special nutrition could also get prescriptions done for them.
Another policy under the WIC program based on their major objective of providing nutritional health was the provision of nutritional education. This policy is achieved by the constant issuance of education programs that are organized for a given duration to the participants. To encourage this, WIC offers food instruments (FI) in every second participation of the nutrition education program. This education is meant to ensure that the caretakers have the appropriate knowledge on how to apply the food and medical formulas as offered by the WIC programs. In addition, they are educated on how to keep themselves in case of pregnant participants (Forester, 2009).
With disparities in the immunization rate between well-off and low-income children, the white house offered a memorandum that acknowledged the role of WIC in accessing low-income families. This formed one of WIC’s most recent policies which is the policy of immunization, screening, and referral. This policy allows for WIC to coordinate with other agencies that deal with immunization to ensure that screening and referring are done for all children under the age of two. With their immunization history, the children can be subjected to the appropriate immunization thus enhancing their health (USDA, 2009).
These are among the policies that form the day-to-day running of the WIC program in the United States.
References
Forester, Kathryn. “WIC Policy Update.” Oregon Department of Human Service. Web.
Institute of Medicine. WIC Food Packages: Time for a Change. New York: National Academies Press, 2005.
McGanity, William. “The Story of the Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National Defense’s North American Activities.”The Journal of Nutrition. 2009. Web.
US Department of Agriculture. The WIC Program: Bachground, Trends and Economic Issues. Economic Research Service. 2009. Web.
US Department of Agriculture. Implementing the new WIC Policy for Immunization, Screening and Referral. 2009. Web.