WIC AND SOMATIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PRE SCHOOL CHILDREN: THE NATIONAL WIC EVALUATION

Abstract

We related age of onset of benefits from the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to height, weight, Quetelet's index (wt/length2), head circumference, mid-arm circumference and triceps and subscapular skinfold thickness among 2142 representative poor children under five from 59 areas nationwide and behavior and cognition among 486 four and five year olds. We used Schaeffer's Infant Behavior Inventory, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test and the forward and backward digit memory tests from the McCarthy Scale of Infant Development. We controlled for age and sex, and then for a wide range of additional social, demographic and somatic covariates.Highly significant improvements in children's diets by WIC were not reflected by advantages in linear growth. WIC participants were significantly shorter than controls (0.8 cm). Early WIC recruits had no parallel decrease in head circumference. We conclude that a) the WIC program is targeted to appropriate (short and deprived) children; b) identifying adequate controls for WIC recipients may now be impossible, with the wide diffusion of the program; c) it is unlikely that WIC benefits had any effect on linear growth; d) early WIC benefits had some beneficial effect on later head, and presumably, brain growth. Prenatal WIC recipients had significantly better performance on the PPVT, and later recruits had significantly better (backward) digit memory. There were no significant differences in child behavior. The implications of these observations will be discussed.