Responsible Bodies: Self-Care and State Power in the U.S. Women, Infants, and Children Program

While previous scholarship examining the U.S. Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program has focused on its cost-effectiveness and health outcomes, this article analyzes the social implications of WIC policy. Extending theories of neoliberal welfare and biomedicalization, I argue that WIC aims to produce health-conscious, self-surveilling subjects. Primary document analysis and interviews with WIC staff and clients reveal how WIC counselors pursue these aims through tactics of habituation, responsibilization, and empowerment. This multi-pronged strategy increases mothers’ inclination to adopt WIC-approved health norms and practices as their own, and it disguises (but does not eliminate) the workings of state power.