Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 68, No. 17 - April 25, 2019
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............5
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................5
City Council..........................3
Classifieds............................3
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Lawndale..............................4
Legals.......................... 4,5,6,7
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
The Weekly Newspaper of Inglewood
Earth Day Music Festival 2019
Crowds came out in droves for last Saturday’s Earth Day Music Festival in Inglewood. Photo: City of Inglewood
Friday
Partly
Cloudy
63˚/56˚
Saturday
Partly
Cloudy
64˚/56˚
Sunday
Partly
Cloudy
64˚/57˚
WIC’s Switch to Healthy Start Foods
Helping Kids to Dodge Obesity
By Rob McCarthy
the obesity risk by 10 percent or higher
The WIC program feeds two-thirds of
for boys and girls when they reached 4 years
the babies in Los Angeles County, but the
old, the study found. Catherine Crespi with
food boxes for low-income mothers of small
UCLA’s Field School of Public Health said
children aren’t just formula and groceries.
the improved weights have a lasting effect.
Those packages are warding off obesity and
“Because heavier children tend to become
health problems related to poor eating habits.
heavier adults, our study suggests that improving
WIC revamped its food selection for
the diets of young children is an important
mothers, expectant women and infants and
strategy for addressing our national obesity
children last decade. The program cut back on
epidemic,” said Crespi, who co-authored the
juice, whole milk and cheeses, and replaced
study of the Special Supplemental Nutrition
them with more fruits, vegetables and whole
Program for Women, Infants and Children.
grains. WIC also reduced the amount of fat
It’s commonly called WIC.
and calories that infants were getting from
In Los Angeles County, WIC currently
formula in the family’s package.
serves approximately 67 percent of all infants
Those dietary changes led to a marked
and about half of all children ages 1 to 5,
decrease in obesity rates in WIC’s young
according to local figures. Approximately
clients, according to a new study released
600,000 residents and 400,000 families use the
this week. Because WIC serves more than
food assistance every month. WIC organizations
400,000 residents every month, cutting the
-- which serve almost every low-income
adolescent obesity rate with simple dietary
neighborhood in the county -- are devoted
changes is a life-changer for local families
to improving nutrition and health among
and the Los Angeles County public-health
pregnant women and young children.
system. Work by researchers at UCLA’s School
The UCLA-Tulane work demonstrated the
of Public Health. Tulane University and the
impact that food selection for children under
county-based WIC agency has produced a
5 have on obesity risk and what researchers
blueprint for how to reverse the national
call “growth trajectories” for children in the
epidemic of obesity.
WIC program. These findings could apply to
The study compared the weights of children
children in other parts of the country, said
before and after the changes in the WIC
Crespi. The work is the most comprehensive
program in 2009. Researchers included data
study of the effect of the government-funded
from 180,000 WIC client-families since 2003.
food program’s changes on obesity risk in
WIC’s healthy-food boxes after 2009 reduced
Los Angeles County, she said. Half of all
children under 5 in the county are enrolled in
WIC, the data showed. Researchers examined
data from 2003 to 2016 for four groups of
children: those receiving the newly formulated
food package continuously from birth
to age 4, those receiving only the original
food package, those who joined WIC at age
2 and received the new food package until
age 4, and those who joined at 2 and received
the old package.
UCLA did before-and-after comparisons
of children’s growth potential and weights
based on which WIC packages their families
received. The children who received a full
dose of the new food package had healthier
growth trajectories and lower risk for obesity
at age 4 than those who received a full
dose of the original version of the package.
Specifically, the risk was 12 percent lower
for boys and 10 percent lower for girls.
When the researchers examined growth
trajectories between those two groups, they
noticed the sharpest differences began to
develop at 6 months of age. This suggested
that a more nutritious diet led to healthier
growth in toddlers after they turned 1.
“The beneficial effect of being exposed to
the new food package, compared to the old
one, was much stronger during the 6 monthsto
1-year age interval,” said Pia Chaparro, the
study’s lead author and an assistant professor
of nutrition at the Tulane University School of
See WIC, page 5