The food packages are grounded in the developmental needs of infants as well as in pediatric recommendations about infant feeding. Food package designers also incorporated the recommended eating patterns for preschool children and the additional nutritional requirements of pregnant and breastfeeding women. Nutrition education is an integral part of WIC and its provision is considered a key WIC benefit. Federal regulations require WIC service providers to offer participants at least two nutrition education sessions during each certification period.
Certification tends to occur every six months.
State WIC agencies and their local WIC service providers design educational programs that are appropriate for their participant caseloads. Whatever the delivery mechanism, this education must stress the relationship between proper nutrition and good health. The report summarized here describes the design and implementation of the child nutrition education demonstration and presents findings describing the effectiveness of the demonstration. A key element of the design of this demonstration was the formulation of clear and specific learning objectives. The three learning objectives for the demonstration incorporated concepts from the Food Guide Pyramid, a colorful graphic developed by USDA and the US Department of Health and Human Services to illustrate the recommendations of Dietary Guidelines for American s.