No child should have to worry about where their next meal will come from or whether their family will be able to afford to put food on the table, but unfortunately, that is the reality for millions of Americans. According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) latest data, 13 million U.S. children are food insecure. In April, 35% of households with children under 18 responded to a survey stating, “the food we bought just didn’t last, and we didn’t have enough money to get more.” This is an increase of nearly 20 percentage points from 2018 data, showing just how detrimental the COVID-19 pandemic has been for families due to record high unemployment rates. For those children, uncertain access to food, especially healthy, nutritious food, has serious consequences for health, learning, and development.

As the work begins to wind down for the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) which was tasked with developing the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), it is easy to see that many have worked tirelessly over the last couple of years to get to this point. With each curve ball that was thrown their way, the team has continued to persevere forward so that they can bring the latest and most reliable nutrition research to the stage for the new DGAs. The long-awaited final Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Public Meeting was held via webcast on June 17. In this blog, I will walk you through what to expect next from the DGAC, the agencies responsible for creating the final guidelines, and key takeaways from the final meeting.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly referred to as “WIC”, is a federal nutrition program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). Programs like WIC are essential in ensuring families experiencing food insecurity have additional resources and access to nutritious foods each month. Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, many people are now unemployed or furloughed which makes it challenging for some families to keep food on the table. Throughout the pandemic, employees of the WIC program continue to work to ensure these families have access to healthy foods.