For 50 years, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, has provided vital nutrition to improve health and developmental outcomes for children.
Dairy products high in essential nutrients have been an important part of this program with milk, cheese and yogurt as three of the five top redeemed items through WIC.
However, in finalized updates to the foods prescribed to participants announced on Tuesday by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, cuts were made to the amount of dairy products participants can receive through the program.
The WIC food packages contain prescribed foods and beverages specifically designed to fill in key nutritional gaps to support healthy growth and development.
USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) proposed new science-based revisions in November 2022 and was open for public comment into February 2023. The announcement this week finalizes the changes that are intended to provide WIC participants with a wider variety of foods, provide state agencies with greater flexibility to tailor food packages that accommodate participants’ special dietary needs and personal and cultural food preferences, and provide more equitable access to supplemental foods.
The changes to the WIC food packages support fruit and vegetable consumption by providing participants with up to four times the amount they would otherwise receive.
“For the 6.6 million moms, babies and young children who participate in WIC – and the millions more eligible to participate – these improvements to our food packages have the potential to make positive, lifelong impacts on health and well-being,” said FNS Administrator Cindy Long.
The changes also reduce the amount of milk provided in all child, pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding participant food packages and allow for non-dairy substitution options such as plant-based yogurts and cheeses.
“This final rule cuts the amount of milk that can be purchased by up to 3 gallons per family per month at a time of high food prices, stubborn inflation and rising hunger rates, and harms nutrition security by disregarding the Dietary Guidelines’ findings that dairy items in the WIC food package are underconsumed,” said Michael Dykes, DVM, president and CEO of the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA).
In a poll conducted by IDFA of WIC participants, dairy foods are their most popular foods provided by the WIC package and 34% of participants were unsure if they would reenroll in the program following these cuts.
Gregg Doud, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), said, “NMPF is disturbed by the decision to reduce access to the essential nutrients dairy adds to the diet. Nutrition science demonstrates that dairy products like milk, yogurt and cheese are especially important for women, infants and children; meanwhile, nearly 90 percent of Americans don’t meet the number of dairy servings recommended by the 2020-25 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”
Even though the USDA reduced the allotted amount of dairy, it made some positive changes in the accessibility of dairy for program participants by requiring states to offer lactose-free milk and a wider selection of product package sizes.
Dykes explained, “For example, IDFA has worked for many years to create flexibility that allows WIC participants to swap a portion of their milk allotment for reasonably sized portions of yogurt (such as 4-ounce, 5.3-ounce and 6-ounce cups) totaling up to 32 ounces, rather than one 32-ounce tub. With that change in place, WIC participants will have greater access to nutrient-dense foods that help participants meet the program’s nutrient recommendations.”
In the passing of the federal appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024, WIC was fully funded, including an extra $1 billion for a total of over $7 billion in funding to provide nearly seven million pregnant women, new mothers, infants and young children with nutritional assistance.
WIC state agencies now have two years to implement these changes, allowing time to engage with key partners on how best to tailor the new food packages to meet the needs of participants.
“We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with USDA to encourage states to fully utilize the rule’s provisions that expand options for yogurt and cheese and to mitigate the cuts to milk benefits,” Dykes said.
