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In her role as a fellow, Paz Baldrich has been gathering input from child nutrition advocacy groups and other stakeholders to help strengthen the CNR Act. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to modernize and expand the guidelines so that more kids can be eligible,\u201d she says. \u201cAlso strengthening the nutrition standards to align with the dietary guidelines, that’s one of our priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paz Baldrich is passionate about food equity, particularly when it comes to children and their development. She is particularly interested in expanding the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, more commonly known as WIC, which provides assistance to children until they are 5.<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cSome kids, when they\u2019re 5, they’re not in kindergarten, so they’re not covered under a school-meal program, so we’re trying to extend it to age 6, or until their first day of kindergarten in order to fill in that gap,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n
She\u2019s also concerned with expanding school free-lunch programs. \u201cBecause of COVID, all kids in schools are eligible for free meals. But before COVID, that was not the case; either you paid full price, reduced price or you got a free meal. So, one of the biggest things that we’re trying to do is get more kids to be eligible for free meals. This is as close as we can get to universal school meals, which would be the ideal situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paz Baldrich recently moderated a panel of health and nutrition experts on \u201cThe Effects of Food Insecurity on Child Development: A Focus on Hispanic and Latino Children Living in the U.S.\u201d as part of a four-day 2022 CHCI Capitol Hill Policy Briefing Series.<\/p>\n She was introduced by U.S. Rep. Robert Scott, D-VA, who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor, and is sponsoring the reauthorization act. <\/p>\n \u201cIsabella has played and will continue to play an instrumental role in helping draft legislation for this reauthorization,\u201d Scott says. \u201cOur committee has been extremely fortunate to have Isabella bring her perspective, not only as a CHCI graduate fellow, but also as a registered dietitian nutritionist. Through Isabella\u2019s studies as an undergraduate nutrition major at Montclair State University, she began to comprehend the complexities involved with food equity and the government\u2019s role in combating food insecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n All of Paz Baldrich\u2019s experiences as a young child on a free-lunch program and her studies in nutrition, \u201care all absolutely valuable in the legislative work that she manages,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n A Dietitian Goes to Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n Shortly after arriving in Washington, D.C., for her fellowship, Paz Baldrich reached out to her former professor Lauren Dinour to thank her. \u201cShe\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m here,\u201d the Montclair grad says. <\/p>\n \u201cI was so excited to hear that she had gotten this fellowship, and she was putting her education into action,\u201d says Dinour, a Nutrition and Food Studies associate professor. Dinour. \u201cI was curious to hear more.\u201d So she invited Paz Baldrich to speak on campus.<\/p>\n Paz Baldrich earned top grades and a couple of scholarships, Dinour recalls. However, \u201cwhat was most impressive about Isabella was her willingness to use her bilingual skills,\u201d Dinour adds. \u201cShe was one of two students who volunteered to work with the Center of Excellence for Latino Health, which is part of Clara Maass Medical Center. They developed nutrition education workshops in Spanish and delivered them in Spanish, which was very impressive, given that we don’t teach our nutrition courses in Spanish.\u201d<\/p>\n Dinour\u2019s class touches on food insecurity and nutrition programs, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Most of her nutrition students tend to focus on helping people one-on-one or in small groups. \u201cThey come into nutrition not thinking about policy \u2026 and understanding the role that policy plays in so much of our daily lives,\u201d Dinour says. \u201cSo, part of what I try to get across in this course is the role and importance of policy but also our ability to affect policy as citizens of the United States, as future professionals, as advocates.\u201d<\/p>\n One assignment requires students to analyze a current bill in the state legislature or in Congress and write that letter, which Dinour says she encourages her students to send, even if it often takes a long time to receive a response. <\/p>\n \u201cYou should let them know how you feel either as a resident or as someone who cares deeply about these issues because your patients or clients may be affected,\u201d Dinour says.<\/p>\n It was that letter-writing assignment that first piqued Paz Baldrich\u2019s interest in public policy. It was also not the only time she wrote to a representative. After graduating Montclair, Paz Baldrich did a dietetic internship at Saint Elizabeth University, where she earned a Master of Science in Nutrition and had a similar letter-writing assignment. She also did clinical rotations at Saint Clare\u2019s Hospital. <\/p>\n Although she interviewed to work with individual members of Congress, she opted to work on the House committee because of her nutrition background.<\/p>\n Paz Baldrich returned to campus this spring to speak to students in Dinour\u2019s Community Nutrition Class about the need for dietitians on Capitol Hill. <\/p>\n \u201cI’m here to tell you that we need more dietitians and more nutrition professionals making nutrition policy, because the people who make these policies are not experts in nutrition,\u201d Paz Baldrich told the engaged class. <\/p>\n Her speech to Dinour\u2019s class was a full-circle moment for Paz Baldrich, who had the professor for two classes, including the Community Nutrition course, in spring 2019.<\/p>\n Food was in her future<\/strong><\/p>\n Paz Baldrich, who was born in Cali, Colombia, and grew up in Budd Lake, New Jersey, recalls receiving free lunch in elementary school. While she doesn\u2019t recall any stigma which sometimes affects young children on the program, she remembers experiencing a cultural conflict of sorts. She grew up on a diet rich in beans and lentils and other foods not readily available at her school cafeteria.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you didn’t have lunch money or you forgot it, they would give you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,\u201d she says, shaking her head at the memory. \u201cBeing Latina, I had never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I hated it. So that was very unfortunate for me because I couldn’t really eat it.\u201d <\/p>\n Having grown up watching the Food Network daily, it\u2019s not surprising that Paz Baldrich would end up pursuing nutrition as a career. She enjoyed cooking with her grandparents or on her own, following a recipe and at one point aspired to be a chef. <\/p>\n \u201cMy dream was to go to the Culinary Institute of America because I wanted to be an executive chef,\u201d she recalls, laughing. \u201cThen I realized that I would hate cooking for a living. I do it because I like to cook for myself.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI think it’s valuable for the alums to share about their experience and to hopefully inspire a new class of future dietitians. It’s also great for the students to hear from a near-peer about their experience and where they are and their path so far and how they used what they learned to get where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowing what you don\u2019t want is important<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite Paz Baldrich\u2019s success on Capitol Hill, ultimately she hopes to find a job working for a nonprofit organization where she can focus on nutrition education, particularly among the Latino community. <\/p>\n \u201cI’ve seen the disparities that our community faces,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to focus more on tailoring nutrition education to the population with an emphasis on cultural foods, because a lot of times dietitians don’t really understand the different cultural foods that we have. It\u2019s a whole other world. I’m not going to understand, for example, Japanese culture as much as I’m going to understand my own, right? It\u2019s not their fault, it\u2019s just not the knowledge they have.\u201d<\/p>\n Story by Staff Writer Sylvia A. Martinez<\/a>. Photos courtesy of Amaris Benavidez, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and Jessica Karasik.<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"\/responsive-media\/cache\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/04\/Isabella-Paz-Baldrich.Zoom_.png.0.1x.generic.jpg\")
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