May 15, 2012

Today in class we had Melissa come talk with us. She is a dietitian at WIC in Perry county. She went to OU for her undergrad then became an RD and then came back to OU for her masters degree and now she works at WIC. WIC in Ohio is fully funded by the federal government. WIC is a supplemental nutrition program for women, infant and children who are 185% of the poverty line and who are nutritionally at risk. WIC helps to give nutrition education as well as has breast feeding education. It was neat to hear Melissa talk today because I had her for NUTR 128 and thats the class that made me want to switch my major to Dietetics. I think WIC would be a really fun place to work. She also said she has two DTR's that work in her WIC office so that helps in case I take the exam to become a DTR. She also showed us these jelly belly things. They show you how big your infants stomach is at 1 day, 3 days and 10 days. It is amazing how small their stomachs are on the first day of their live and then to see how fast their stomachs grow in just 9 days. The grow from the size of a large marble to the size of a plastic easter egg. I think working for WIC would be a great opportunity for people who do not get an internship. I think it would be a very rewarding job especially if you do not really like clinical work, which I do not. However, the Ohio WIC program is not well evaluated for how many people they help each year. The are evaluated and monitored by the federal government but they are mostly worried about making sure that the proper paper work is being filled out.