Fit WIC: attitudes, perceptions and practices of WIC staff toward addressing childhood overweight.

Objective: To assess the attitudes, perceptions, and practices of staff of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in providing nutrition education on childhood overweight topics with WIC participants.

Design: Descriptive and correlational study.

Setting: WIC clinics in Virginia.

Participants: 106 employees working in direct contact with WIC participants.

Mean Outcome Measure(s): Demographic information; comfort level and frequency of discussing childhood overweight-related topics with participants; perception of WIC's ability to prevent and help address overweight among children and adults; body mass index (BMI); and attitudes toward personal weight.

Analysis: Descriptive statistics, regression, and analysis of variance.

Results: WIC staff in this study reported a lack of comfort, practice, and confidence in addressing and/or preventing childhood overweight with WIC participants, with differences existing based on job title (P < .05). Barriers to implementing programs included perceived attitudes of participants, transportation, time, cultural issues, and childcare. Staff BMIs were significantly correlated to ethnicity, age, feeling overweight, unhappiness with current weight, and comfort level discussing fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity (P < .05).

Conclusions And Implications: Staff training, health promotion programs, and culturally relevant educational materials are warranted for WIC staff to build a strong knowledge base and promote self-efficacy about childhood overweight-related topics.