This Program Is Helping Crush Childhood Obesity. Guess What Republicans Want To Do To It...
Researchers are still exploring what factors caused the early childhood obesity rate to plummet43 percent over the last decade. But a group of health experts at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill think that they have found at least part of the answer: changes to the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children that gave poor mothers the means to purchase more fresh produce for their children.
This program, which is better known as WIC, provides billions of dollars per year in nutritious food vouchers for low-income pregnant women, breast-feeding women, and children younger than five. WIC was created in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until 2009 that it provided mothers with vouchers for fruits and vegetables. That’s the change that the North Carolina researchers think may have contributed to the stunning decline in obesity rates. Republicans looking to slash federal spending have targeted WIC in recent years. In March 2012, for example, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives tried to cut $243 million from WIC.
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Republicans looking to slash federal spending have targeted WIC in recent years. In March 2012, for example, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives tried to cut $243 million from WIC. The cut, which did not become law, "would have resulted in WIC having to turn away hundreds of thousands of eligible applicants," write Zoë Neuberger and Robert Greenstein, analysts for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank.
More here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/government-nutrition-program-helping-us-crush-childhood-obesity-levels