week 7

Tuesday 05/11/10

GUEST SPEAKER: Julie Gladmay

AGENCY: Athens County WIC Program

POSITION: Lactation Consultant

TYPES OF PROGRAMS: Nutrition education and support, Breastfeeding education and support, Referral for health care, immunization screening and referral, and supplemental foods (Milk, Cereal, Juice, peanut butter or beans, infant formula tuna fish and carrot).

FUNDING SOURCE: United States Department of Agriculture

MISSION: To improve the nutrition and health status of low-income women, infants, and preschool children who are at-risk by providing:
Nutritious Food
Nutrition and health education
Breastfeeding education and support
Referrals to health and human services

PROGRAM PLANNING, MONITORING & EVALUATION: Planning of programs is done under the supervision of USDA. The programs are tailored for with mothers and children in mind. There is a medical center available to monitor improvement in health or take care of the sick at low cost. Children are tested for iron deficiency as well as their heights and weight to monitor their progress. There is collaboration between the medical center and WIC for referrals in case there is the need for medical attention. Surveys are given to participants of WIC to get feedback for evaluating their program. Also follow up calls are made after educational sections to listen to the views of participants.

THE ROLE OF NUTRITION PROFESSIONAL: With the programs of WIC focused on nutritional matters it is important to have a nutrition professional at WIC. Even though the programs are supervised by USDA, it is important to have a nutrition professional to have these programs implemented correctly. Nutrition professional expertise will also be needed during counseling when it comes to child or mother’s nutrient deficiency.

The programs designed at WIC cannot be over stated. Listening to Julie talk and the little that I have experienced at WIC shows that there could be a better program for women and children. With the rate of poverty in Ohio and the current economic down turn; no wonder Ohio is sixth in WIC programs in the nation. I have had the privilege of accompanying my daughter and wife to WIC. They have a very effective way of monitoring children’s growth and responding accordingly. I remember one time they informed me that my daughter was low in iron and some discrepancy with her height to weight, they changed her coupons from her initial foods items to other food items that could combat the deficiency and interesting enough, during our next visit, her iron levels and height to weight were within range. In fact they do a great job at WIC.

They reason why I brought up the cultural issue was that my daughter will not even eat some of the food items they had on their coupons. She won’t even take a second look at cheese, so anytime we went to take food items, we have to leave out the cheese. That was quite strange for some of the attendants. I have never seen cheese in my life till my undergraduate level, so you can imagine, I never had that urge to introduce cheese to my daughter. Also foods that are not that popular in my country are quite expensive to get.

I believe the collaboration between the medical center and those who have the direct contact with mothers and children is an excellent idea. This forms the foundation for an effective monitoring and evaluation of the program.
Simply put, I am in love with this program.


Thursday 05/13/10

GUEST SPEAKER: Michael Sieminski, RD, LD

AGENCY: American Dairy Association, MID EAST.

POSITION: Nutrition Communications Manager

TYPES OF PROGRAMS: Nutrition Affairs (Protecting and promoting dairy product), School Marketing (Targeting school children), Marketing and Business Development (Serving as a resource to retailers and increasing dairy availability), Industry image and relation (maintaining and building public confidence) and; Communication and Media (programs to minimize child obesity)

FUNDING SOURCE: Sales from dairy product. For every 12 gallons of milk sold, 15 cents is allocated to American Dairy Association.

MISSION: The mission of the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council, Inc. is to economically benefit dairy farmers by encouraging the consumption of milk and dairy products through advertising, education and promotion, to reach consumers with product benefits and advantages.

PROGRAM PLANNING, MONITORING & EVALUATION: Programs are planned and implemented by staff. Staff come together to bring out their ideas of how to promote dairy product in terms of nutritional importance and the most favorable and feasible ideas are implemented. Monitoring of program is also undertaken by staff and through the setting up of Facebook to see how many they have as members. Evaluating program is done by observing the sale of a dairy product before and after that program. The speaker however indicated that it is very difficult to undertake evaluation but mostly, fluid milk sales from the national perspective are used.

THE ROLE OF NUTRITION PROFESSIONAL: Programs of this sort requires not only one that is dedicated but someone who knows what he is talking about and how to convey the message. Certainly there are so many quacks information out there about diary product and so it is important to have a well vested individual on nutrition to promote and protect the image of milk and its products. The nutrition professional will be one to ease the dilemma of individuals on milk as well as providing the nutritional benefits of dairy product to an individual.

I have learned a lot today, not only from our guest speaker but from our two ladies ( Laura and Kendell) who presented their poster at the convocation center. Matters of food security are very dear to my heart and I was very happy to hear them talk about their study. However, I was disappointed to hear that Kendell’s work was not judge. I thought she had an excellent poster. I also saw Lori and Tianxu’s posters too. I am quite familiar with their work as my classmates and I helped plant some fruit trees for Lori and I have been working with Tianxu on cell outlining for her data collection. In a summary I thought the program was interesting and I look forward to being part of it next year.

I will call today’s class a communication class. I believe as future dieticians and community nutritionists; we will all be coming into contact with people. Like Mick informed, it is not about telling but talking. There should be effective communication leading to feedback. I guess cultural competence comes to play here. I could not agree more with Mick when he informed that it is important to know who you are talking to when it comes to communication. I am a little bit surprise at their funding source, I wonder how much they are able to make to run their program effectively especially when a product like cheese is taken out of WIC. I stand corrected but I feel this is a program USDA should be funding. I have always seen chocolate milk at Kroger and Walmart but never took a second look at it. Now that I have been educated, my daughters will need it and I guess me too, just to keep up with their energy. However, wonder if it is advisable to give my one year old daughter chocolate milk.

I am very happy to be part of today’s class because I have learned a lot about communication and glad to have Mick’s power point presentation available. Thanks Dr DH for making that possible.