Rethinking Help for Children the Wic Program
The New York Times editorial, "Rethinking Help for Children" points out the insufficiency of a thirty year-old federal program to achieve its goals. The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food assistance program was established in the mid 1970s and intended to provide financial help to approximately 8 million individuals that includes about half of all American infants and one-quarter of children (NYT 2008). According to the criticisms highlighted by the article, the structure of the program provides food vouchers to low-income families, but those vouchers are usable mainly for high-fat and high-sugar foods that contradict some of the basic dietary principles that nutritionists have developed in the three decades since the inception of the WIC program.Under pressure from the Institute of Medicine, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) updated WIC regulations to improve the nutritional value to recipients, but even those changes are insufficient, largely because budgetary concerns limit the program budget to increases that amount to a few extra dollars each month, per person, for better nutritional choices such as fresh fruits and vegetables (NYT 2008).
Conflict theorists would probably argue that providing adequate nutrition for low-income families is more important and fair than ensuring that upper middle class people continue to live in larger homes than they can afford. Those without a specific sociological perspective other than compassion and benevolence might characterize the WIC budget matter as an important issue whose solution requires addressing particular troubles in order to solve a growing social problem that primarily affects the poor, but also all of society in one way or another. Trouble, Issue, Social Problem, or Sociological Problem: Characterizing the matter of increasing the WIC budget as either a trouble, or an issue, or a social problem, or a sociological problem, probably depends on one's perspective. Interactionists might characterize the situation as a trouble caused by the social problem of pandering to the poor. The Conflict Theorist Reaction and Remedy: Conflict theorists view society as a perpetual conflict between groups situated at different levels of a hierarchical structure; they attribute many of the social ills that affect the poor and least powerful segments of society to the conflicting desires of the rich and powerful to maintain circumstances that benefit them (Macionis 2003). Functionalists might consider it a trouble or a social problem that is the responsibility of society to rectify for the ultimate good of society. Part of this argument would likely include a projection of all the additional financial (and other) costs to society that eventually result from a deficient WIC program. That view might consider inadequate infant nutrition to be a social problem related to poverty levels in society resulting in future troubles in the form of health problems and additional drains of financial resources. Interactionists might suggest that continually providing more and more public assistance to low income families actually reduces their incentive to improve their situation through hard work. They would include future medical costs for childhood diseases as well as for the consequences of obesity, which recent research has linked to poor nutritional patterns established in early childhood (Larson-Duyff 2002). They might suggest that the social problem of continually providing unearned governmental assistance (beyond that which is absolutely necessary for survival) is the cause of trouble in the form of a perpetually dependent underclass. Interactionists might actually resist proposals to increase the WIC budget and characterize fruits and vegetables as foods that individuals should provide for themselves, distinguishing them from truly essential foods for infants, such as milk and infant formula. Conflict theorists would propose remedies similar to those proposed by functionalists, except that their analysis of programs targeted for budgetary reduction would not be based purely on their relative worth to society as a whole. he Functionalist Reaction and Remedy: In general, functionalists view society as an interconnected organism in which the whole is only as healthy as the overall health of all its parts; they also consider the needs of everyone in society as the responsibility of society to provide as a whole (Macionis 2003). Therefore, conflict theorists would probably suggest that the plight of low-income families in the first place is the result of social stratification and the greed and selfishness of powerful lobbyists and corporate entities who reap tremendous profits by virtue of their political and financial strength, at the expense of those without comparable financial resources and influence.
Common topics in this essay:
Remedy Conflict,
Sociological Characterizing,
Reaction Remedy,
Remedy Interactionists,
Children WIC,
Budget OMB,
Help Children,
conflict theorists,
wic program,
wic budget,
low-income families,
York Times,
macionis 2003,
trouble issue social,
issue social,
financial resources,
social stratification,
program budget,
trouble issue,
upper middle class,
issue social sociological,
conflict theorists probably,
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Acceptance Essays
