Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Hi and welcome back to the Nutrition Connection Podcast, the show where science meets storytelling. I'm your host, Dr. Kristin Hicks-Roof, dietitian, researcher, and lifelong advocate of the role of nutrition, health, and wellness. Each episode, I sit down with dietitians and nutrition experts all across the food and healthcare landscape, leaders whose work touches nearly every aspect of our lives. So whether you're a student, a seasoned professional, or someone simply curious about food, nutrition, and health, this podcast is just for you. The views, thoughts and comments on this podcast do not reflect those of my employer nor the employers of my guests. So let's go ahead and get connected. Today. I'm really excited to bring on a guest of mine. She is a public health personnel and she has such a fascinating story with what she does with her role. So I can't wait for you to learn more about what she does and all about her career. So we have Dr. Colleen Delaney. She's a technical advisor of the USA with vitamin angels. Welcome to the show Colleen.

Colleen Delaney: Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really excited to share my story.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: I know I can't wait. So we got to like chat before we went on record and you were just telling me how many people you've impacted over the globe with Vitamin Angels. So we're going to dive deep and get to Vitamin Angels work. But also we're going to talk about your whole career. You are a PhD RD. You're one of these what I love to call unicorns because there's not very many of us. So let's live in. But let's start from the very beginning. What inspired you and made you want to become a nutrition professional?

Colleen Delaney: So I really got into nutrition because I believe that evidence-based information should be available to all people so that they are empowered to make decisions around food that meets their needs, their desires, their cultural beliefs. And then as a mom myself, I'm incredibly motivated by maternal and child health and nutrition. ⁓ Entering into motherhood, I was already working in ⁓ the sector of maternal and child nutrition. But since becoming a mom, it just really cemented to me that this is such an incredible population that we need to be serving in a much more deep way. And it really just cemented, like this is where I need to be.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Well, and I've read a lot of the maternal health literature because I'm also a mom and it was really fascinating to learn about the mortality rates in the US and international, but especially in the US, especially when you overlay some health disparities like race and location. mean, it is fascinating and terrible as well. Like how do we not help support women throughout the pregnancy cycle? But then even afterwards, I remember My husband and I, had our second kid know our first one. And they were like, all right, you're good to leave the hospital. like, you didn't even teach me anything. Like you're just letting me walk out with this human and I don't know anything, you know? So.

Colleen Delaney: No! Exactly. Yeah, I felt the same way, like, please don't send me home with this person.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: But I'm like, I just learned how to do some of these things that I still not fully confident. And we even have three kids and it took me every child. was like, there was such a learning curve and there still is every phase. So I agree. think that most vulnerable part of women, which is during, you know, pregnancy and then childbearing ages, ⁓ all the way up to having small kids is such a good time to really focus on women's health and nutrition. So I'm excited to like dive through to that. so you talked a little bit about like what inspired you and how has your journey been? So you finished your undergrad and dietetic internship. What sort of careers have you had that like really pushed you into that women's health arena?

Colleen Delaney: So I had a little bit of a convoluted path here. I did my undergraduate work in biochemistry and Spanish. I had a dual major. ⁓ And in undergrad, I did a lot of bench work. I worked at Penn State Hershey Medical Center in the summer as a research scientist and also educator. ⁓ So did summer camps that were focused in science really. cementing my love for education, but I realized over those four years that I did not want to be a bench scientist. I really wanted to participate in like the human side of things. ⁓ And with that Spanish major also did some research in Latin America focusing on the election cycle in Peru and trying to understand like the differences in perspective for those that lived on the coast versus towards the mountains. And so that was my first step into qualitative research. like, I got the bug. I absolutely loved it. And so I'm like, this is where I should be. And so I then... Really was thoughtful. I've always had a passion for food and nutrition and like all things focused on culture. And I found myself at Rutgers University in a nutrition program. started as a master's student. I entered in the master's program and within the first six months, like I want to be here to stay and transitioned into the PhD program. ⁓ Throughout my time at Rutgers, I focused on a childhood obesity intervention, ⁓ program development and implementation under the guidance of Dr. Carol Bird-Breadbender and was there for quite a while. ⁓ Both did my PhD and postdoctoral fellowship with Carol ⁓ and really that developed my love of program development. continued that bug around qualitative research. And since our focus was on moms and their kids, it just was like the foundation of like, is where I'm to be. And then that work just really cemented my love. So the Homestyle Obesity Prevention Program was focused in two different states. So a pretty broad intervention that we developed and... really made me realize that I wanted to have this broader impact across the US. I defended my dissertation at 36 weeks pregnant. yeah. Yeah. Which is absolutely wild. ⁓ defending my dissertation, 36 weeks pregnant. And then my son was six months old when COVID hit. So it was like dissertation defended, trying to figure out motherhood and then COVID hit. ⁓ and so I entered into a postdoctoral fellow within that time of having him and COVID hitting.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: ⁓ my gosh, I can't even imagine.

Colleen Delaney: And it just really cemented like there needs to be more focus on moms. It was just a crazy time having a baby, being home, teaching, pushing a stroller, but teaching was on the phone because it's COVID, ⁓ trying to do research. was a wild time. And so in 2022, ⁓ couple of years into COVID, I found this role at Vitamin Angels and it just felt like such a perfect fit.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Right?

Colleen Delaney: So I serve as our technical advisor for our US and work, but also help support our work in the UK. And I provide the technical oversight for all the work that we do here in the US and we serve over 500,000 women annually. We were founded in 1994 and we're a public health nutrition nonprofit that works to improve maternal and child nutrition outcomes in underserved communities all across the world. So we work in over 65 countries with more than 1200 organizations and we reach 74 million women annually with evidence-based nutrition interventions through partnerships with local governments, other NGOs and academic institutions.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: That is wild. mean, that is like massive scale, you know, and that's one thing that I've learned over my career. Like I used to love helping the one on ones, right? Whether you are doing program development for a small community base or with students. And then I realized I actually really liked the public health, whether that's the policy or mass scale nutrition, education or intervention. So it sounds like you've kind of developed that and really What's cool about what's brought you to where you are today is you almost had like a thread that interwove all your passions together, right? You talked about the international experience, learning about women's health, but then you also use, I'm sure that biochemistry background in terms of how nutrients get absorbed. What's the most bioavailable form to be putting into a product that can have shelf stability and allowable for transport around the world. So it definitely seems like a culmination and I love when you hear those sort of stories that like every step in your journey almost leads to the next step because of the passions. And I also had a baby. I actually had our second daughter on Friday, March 13th, 2020. Like when COVID was like, I don't know if it was the day plus or minus five days, but it was the day in Florida. And I remember the daycare called and was like, you need to come pick up your older child. Like our daycare is closing, definitely. And I was like, I just had a baby. You know what? I was teaching and doing research and I was like, this is crazy. What is going to happen? So, but it's crazy to think we've gone six years now, right?

Colleen Delaney: Yeah. It's crazy. I know my son's turning seven in July and I'm like, this is, it's been a wild ride. And it, it's so true. These like threads that seem so random in the moment and disconnected. And I always, because I've had a few dietetic interns, I've had, I've had students over the year. I always emphasize like, even though these opportunities feel random and disconnected in the moment, there is something that's leading you to where you should be.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Yeah, no, I completely agree. And for me, I used to always teach my students like every opportunity is a new open door. And you never know if that door you're going to walk through right now or in five years from now, there's a connection that you had met at that previous volunteer experience that now it may hire you. Right. So like you just never know that. So let's talk a little bit about what you do in your current role. Yes, you impact millions around the globe, but what is a technical advisor? Is a PhD needed for this ⁓ sort of role? And then what does a day-to-day look like?

Colleen Delaney: Yeah, so as the technical advisor, I do a lot of literature reviews. We do something called the landscape analysis pretty regularly where we just scan recent findings and really just write up a summary of like things that impact people, things that are changing. I attend a lot of webinars to kind of stay in the know around how policies are impacting people. ⁓ So it's a lot ⁓ of just information absorbing and then translating that to this is how we can use that information. These are the grants we should be going after. These are the things that we need to be focusing on as an organization in the United States. So it's taking all that information and then trying to make it actionable into something that we can do that's meaningful.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Yeah, how did you even find that role? I always think so many times PhDs are like, maybe they don't want to go the academic route. And they're like, well, what's my option? How do I get into these jobs? Or even dietitians, right? They're like, I'm really passionate about women's health. I want to do public health. This sounds like a great opportunity, but like, how did you find it? yeah.

Colleen Delaney: Yeah. Yeah, so I found it actually on the American Society for Nutrition's job board, which is a great place for people to look. But I think also being thoughtful and creative with the skills that you have, writing them down and then trying to use that to identify the jobs that like resonate most with you. Like it doesn't have to be a clinical job. It doesn't have to be an academic job. There's so many jobs out there. that use the translational skills that we have as dieticians, as PhDs, that would be an excellent fit and really benefit from having the skills that you've gathered over the years.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Well, that was one of my goals of the podcast, like showing people that, look, when you have nutrition expertise, you can be used across sectors in a number of different roles that may not explicitly state you must be a PhD RD, right? It may be like looking for a nutrition and health professional or nutrition expert. And you're like, all right, well, I have this background and I am the best suited for this. And sometimes you just got to put your name into so. So I'm curious, Colleen, like you talked about all the landscape analysis, which I have done many of those in my career as well. But how does scientific data impact what you do on a day to day?

Colleen Delaney: Exactly. Yeah, so our primary intervention that we have here is the distribution of prenatal vitamins. Internationally, that looks like helping ⁓ national governments shift from iron folic acid to something much more comprehensive, ⁓ prenatal multivitamin. We use the UNIMAP formula, which is United Nations formulation that has 30 years of evidence backing it and is really robust. I actually have my little bottle here. what's cool is this little bottle has a six month supply ⁓ and meets like the, ⁓ I think it's 15 micronutrients that it has to help fill the gaps in folks diet so that there are better birth outcomes. ⁓ And so that's like our primary intervention. We deliver nutrition education, technical training to healthcare providers. And then that on the ground support for local governments, other institutions to kind of make that transition from iron folic acid to MMS. ⁓ And then in the US, a lot of our work is focused around both delivering that to different healthcare providers to fill the gaps because while Medicaid does provide prenatal vitamins, there's a lot of gaps in accessing Medicaid early in pregnancy. We have high rates of unintended pregnancy and we know that the prenatal vitamins are most impactful if taken before pregnancy. ⁓ So we work with WIC clinics, we work with health departments, we work with federally qualified health centers, and we deliver the prenatal multivitamins in tandem with nutrition education. We develop healthcare provider support materials. ⁓ We have a suite of other materials to support in delivering that intervention. We also do breastfeeding support. We've been doing some research out in Arizona, ⁓ which has been really such a beautiful experience to be a part of. work with a county that's on the border where women have 25 % of women who give birth are breastfeeding seven days after having their child. So there is such low breastfeeding rates. ⁓ Yeah, it's insane. ⁓ because there are few support systems. So folks living at the border, they have to travel three hours to give birth to their child. That's where the closest hospital is. The OBs don't provide their trimester care because they don't have hospital associations. So they also have to go three hours for their third trimester care if they're getting it. So there's all of these gaps just right there in accessing good support and then talk about postpartum and then... early return to work because folks just don't have the capacity to stay home. So we've been working really hard with many partners out in Arizona to develop this intervention. And what's really cool about it is it's something that touches everyone. Like the problems that the people are experiencing there are not isolated to that region. It's just hyper clear that this is an issue because of the disparities that they're experiencing. And so one of the things that we've been working on is this birth and postpartum plan workbook. It's very lengthy, but we've gotten really great responses from the moms that we've been doing focus groups with and the key informant interviews that we've been conducting on how this is going to be impactful. We know that breastfeeding alone is not like the end all be all. It's like identifying those postpartum supports. It's identifying what you want in your birth experience because someone who has a more positive birthing experience is more likely to be successful in meeting their infant feeding goals. So it's been a really cool thing. We've had so many different collaborators. We have some pediatricians down there who we've been working with. We work with the county whip director with the health department. ⁓ So it's just been really, really a magical experience to see all these diverse thoughts coming together over the years and really identifying something that could be really, really helpful and impactful across the country.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: when it takes data to realize where the gaps are to then cater an intervention. I actually live in Arizona and it is a big problem around the border, even when I lived in Texas, because you have such a disconnect to where people can access facilities. And then you also have a language barrier. have, you know, getting, getting deported or having to go back to your home country. So there's so many logistical barriers as well when you're on one of these border states.

Colleen Delaney: Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: So it's fascinating that like you not only impact that abroad, but also here. And I love how everything's like data informed, but then you bring in partners to be able to do that. So yeah, that's just super cool. And you know, I think so many people they, they're, and I have friends, you know, well educated friends that they are in their area of life that they could start having children or they're having children. and they don't even think about a prenatal. And I'm like, whoa, if you're even contemplating having a child right now, like just start a prenatal, you know, but then you go to the store and there's like 200 different ones and what's better than the other and the brand. And I think sometimes for people it's overwhelming and they just don't know. So that's cool that your company has provided almost like a ready to go resource. ⁓ and prenatal for those people that really target some of the gaps because there are gaps that like neural tube deficiency, we know we can prevent that with a simple nutrition intervention at a preconception A or time period. So it's just what I feel like that's where science and public health, it's like they finally interconnect and you're right at that interconnection point. So Colleen, what's been like your favorite or some of your most proud of so far in your career?

Colleen Delaney: Yeah, so I would say that breastfeeding work has been some of my absolute favorite work just because like seeing that low prevalence of breastfeeding and it's not because women don't want to breastfeed. Like that was the finding from the formative research. they want to breastfeed but they are not being supported enough to like meet their goals. ⁓ And so like just getting to go out there, getting to hear from families, getting to hear from providers, getting to collaborate with everybody. We have like pretty frequent touch points and we've been working on this for a few years now. I had a doctoral student who graduated, Dr. Audrey Buckland, who helped me with that work for her dissertation. And it's just been a really exciting thing to push forward and Like I said, the collaboration is unreal. Everyone's so excited to be here and talk about real things and real ways to support women ⁓ beyond just breastfeeding is important. How do we set someone up to meet their feeding goals? Whether or not it is full breastfeeding, whether or not it's starting to breastfeed and then developing some sort of plan when they're ready to transition to formula for whatever reason. But how do we help people meet their goals in birth postpartum so that they can be most successful in meeting those feeding goals for their babies? And then I think the others, ⁓ sorry, go ahead.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: I think, yeah, I was just going to say, you know, so many times, I mean, again, I have friends, I was a lactation consultant for a number of years, a certified lactation consultant, because I was like, after having kids, I'm like, I need to know more, I need to learn more, like how, because there's so many, it's confusing. There's not a lot of support, you know.

Colleen Delaney: Yeah.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: If you don't have the latch, right now, all of sudden you're in pain, you're bleeding, and it's like, of course, I'm not going to continue to do that. But then you may get engorged and have mastitis, right? And so it's like, it's scary. It's scary of the unknown. And I'm educated. I was like, I'm a dietician. I'm going to be really good at lactation. Like, I know nutrition. So imagine someone who has no one to mentor them, no one to educate or guide them.

Colleen Delaney: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: And I mean, just structurally, do you have when you have to go back to work? Do you have time to sit down or do you have four other kids that you're taking care of or one other kid that you're taking care of? Right. It's like there's so many competing demands to be able to squeeze that in. So I could see that being one of your most favorite. Plus, how cool that you'll continue to do that work, you know, throughout. your, you know, the few coming months to years because your partners are brought on board. That's one of the hardest parts whenever you do public health interventions to really make sure that everyone's aligned, everyone's on the same page. You got funding to be able to support that. So Colleen, what suggestions or tips would you have for someone who's maybe interested in, I say this is a niche area because it kind of is, but it's also not like it's public health, it's research and it's the connection between the two. So What tips would you have for someone who's maybe interested in a role like this?

Colleen Delaney: think it's really important to just continue to develop a diverse set of skills because that really allows you to be agile since NGO work is often really multifaceted. I didn't touch on some of the other components, but I do represent our organization as a media spokesperson. So sometimes I get pulled into like different situations. I was on CNN. I have a New York Times opinion piece that we published a few years ago. So like there's that side and then there's also in my role collaborating with corporate partners and trying to identify ways to help build revenue. Again, whether that's grant funding, corporate partner funding, whatever. So there's a lot of diverse skills that my role requires beyond just like the research side of things. So I really enjoy that because every day looks different. ⁓ there's a lot going on, I really thrive when there's a lot going on. Like I am not someone who wants to sit stagnant and not learn. Like I like to be challenged. I like to learn continuously. it's that having that attitude, that grit, and that desire to like continue to self-learn. I think that will get you so far no matter what you do. But yeah, continue building those skills. Join national professional groups like ASN. the American Society for Nutrition, ASPHM, the American Society for Public Health Nutrition, even nutrition adjacent groups. They're great. There's professional networking involved in them. You can be as involved as you want. And I always tell students or young people who reach out to me, ask someone for an informational interview. Like they're very likely to say yes. And the worst they can say is no. People like to talk to other people. We like to share our journey. think especially in the field of nutrition and dietetics, we enjoy communicating. That's why we're here. ⁓ So I think it's always great to reach out and ask people, what brought you on that journey? And then that also gives you someone who knows you. They know your name. They recognize your name. And they might be someone you can reach out to again later.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: you're checking all the boxes of what I always tell people to. And that was actually one of the kind of foundations of this podcast is like, how do I show that there's nutrition professionals in all these diverse careers, but then also create that connection point, right? So you'll, you'll have, you know, Colleen's LinkedIn and the show notes so you can connect. And if you're interested in a career path, like, yeah, I think people for the most part, like when I've invited people to show or people reach out to me, I'm like, yeah, that sounds great. Let's bring you on the show. You know what I mean? Because there's, I have so many people I want to bring on. If I could do this full time, I would just have this like massive list every day. I would be recording episodes, you know, but I don't have that much time. So, but it is fun because no journey looks the same, but there is also like, there is that red thread where it's like, okay, people want to help each other. It's a nutrition. It's a, blend between nutrition and research and health communications really. So yeah, I think work hard, open connections, just like you said, I think it can really open the doors to whatever field you might go in and every door opens to another opportunity in the future. You never know where you might go. I know one of the jobs that I was thinking when I was younger, pre-kids, I was like, I would love a job with like UNICEF or One of these international, because I love traveling. When you talked about Peru, that's actually one of my favorite countries I've ever traveled to. Peru and Namibia are like my top two. And nutrition and like public health intervention looks so different there because the policy and the infrastructure and the refrigeration of food, you know, I was trying to explain to my kids the other day. When you're backpacking in southern Africa. There's not these massive grocery stores, right? There's not all this like food availability in retail and in food service operations and fast food. It's very simple. You may go to the store and there's like one peanut butter. You know what I mean? And so, but my kids were like, what? I don't even understand. And so I encourage you, you haven't traveled, go travel. Cause it sounds like for you Colleen, like your experience in Peru was similar to mine where you're like,

Colleen Delaney: Yes.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Wow, this is so eye opening. There's such a great opportunity to educate here, to improve policy, to improve access to nutrition services. What do you think?

Colleen Delaney: Yeah, and I think too, like that just hit on, I think I was speaking a little bit about, I don't remember if it was before we hopped on to record or after, but we've done a lot of work in Indonesia with the government there to really shift the policy from iron folic acid to the MMS formula. And part of that is like supply chain work, helping build strong, robust systems where they can produce the... ⁓ the prenatal in country, but there's also the social behavior change communication or like the health communication strategies. So there, what we did was actually develop a song that was played on the radio around taking prenatal multivitamins to help build awareness and increase someone's self-efficacy to take it. And so that's been highly successful. We actually have the song on our YouTube channel. If you go to, if you look up Vitamin Angels and find us on YouTube, you can find the song and a little bit more about the story in Indonesia. But it is, you have to highly contextualize the interventions to the country that you're in and be really thoughtful about the local culture. So it looks really different no matter where you go.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: my kids the other day where it came on from school and they were like Arizona, Arkansas. And they're singing that state song. And I was like, guys, I remember that when I was a kid. It's weird. I don't remember all of it, but we were singing along together. So you're right. Sometimes this little, you know, melody or tune can help to imprint things in our brain. so Colleen, my favorite question for last is if you had a crystal ball, what do you think is coming next in nutrition?

Colleen Delaney: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I didn't touch on this in the interview, but one of the things that we've done with restricted funding, and right now we don't have restricted funding for it, is prescription produce programming. ⁓ And having that be highly contextualized to the area that it's serving, I think these programs are gonna continue to grow as we see the outcomes data come out from them. And if anyone... isn't aware of prescription produce program is an intervention where healthcare providers can provide fresh fruits and vegetables to patients that have chronic or diet related conditions like diabetes, hypertension. And we're seeing more and more interventions specifically tailored to pregnancy. ⁓ But I think that they're filling a much needed gap in terms of folks diet. And so I think we're going to see that those are really important and impactful for shaping nutrition policy in the US. And I mean, for me, like my focus is obviously nutrition policy. And I think like the field is continuing to grow and recognize that nutrition is not a one size fits all application and that food is something deeply cultural. And the most effective interventions really meet people where they're at and reflect the nuances of the communities that they serve. So I think that that's really gonna continue to just improve and make our interventions that much more impactful.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: You know what's really crazy? So I attended a conference, the Physician Committee for Responsible Medicine. It's a vegan conference. mean, years ago, I was probably, I mean, I was in grad school. was probably well over 10 years ago. And they, as one of like their giveaways was a produce prescription pad. And it's pretty crazy. Like, it's been well over 10 years and we're just really talking about it. When this was something, 10 years ago or 15 years ago that they were trying to get across. So I think you're right. I think there's a lot of investment. gave a talk with today's dietician a few months ago on food is medicine interventions and how that might be a produce prescription program or medically tailored meals or medically tailored groceries, right? I think there's a big opportunity to say, Hey, what if we actually prescribe real food with nutrients in it? And then people could take that literal prescription, a paper prescription, and go and get groceries for free or discounted. how much better would that be than if they wrote a pharmaceutical script for something that it's like, well, what if you actually did the prevention side of it or really remedied the diet, which is contributing to the chronic disease? So I think there's a huge opportunity there. But I agree with you that I think One of the biggest challenges with produce prescription programs and some of those food is medicine initiatives is every person is so different. So like you can't just send out broccoli and Brussels sprouts and rhubarb because some people may never have seen it. And so one of the things that I've always been curious that I would love to see in the literature one day is how much waste goes into that. And I don't think it's waste because people don't want to do it. I think they want to improve their health. But like, if I get three heads of cauliflower, I mean, I know how to cook it. I mean, I know how to eat it. Maybe my kids don't accept it. Right. And so like, now there's all these barriers. So how do we make this a little bit more of the personalized culturally relevant? Like, I think that's where

Colleen Delaney: Yeah. What are you going to do with it? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: It's a challenge. It's a big challenge in terms of infrastructure to be able to implement that. But I do think that there is opportunity. What do you think?

Colleen Delaney: Yeah, yeah, I that they need to be paired with like MNT. Like without having MNT, it's not helpful. And that's what whenever we've had programs, we always pair it ⁓ at a WIC center. So there's the WIC nutritionist guiding them through like, this is what we're doing. so we've done it a few ways. We had one where it was like a

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: ⁓ yeah.

Colleen Delaney: a food voucher match program for the farmers market nutrition program. Vouchers that were given out in Pennsylvania ⁓ because they're the vouchers can only be used on Pennsylvania grown food. And so by doubling it and giving them the flexibility to get foods not grown in Pennsylvania, it gave them a little bit more leeway with their their food dollars. And then we also had a program where food boxes were given weekly with their ⁓ counseling sessions with the Wake Nutritionist and then they also had like farm pick days. So like making it a community facet versus here's just food, hope you can figure out what to do with the rhubarb. ⁓ Really kind of empowering people to know how to use the foods that were provided and we also had one in Arizona where they were working with a farm to develop recultivate indigenous foods. And so the focus was really on distributing indigenous foods paired with other things. So they had a lot of education going towards how to use these indigenous foods.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Well, I love how you said integrate the dietician, right? I think how have we not learned with the bariatric model, the bariatric surgery model where it was a mandatory dietician consults before surgeries, after surgeries, like that should apply to produce prescription. Every food is medicine should mandate, you know, any sort of medical nutrition therapy, but also GLP-1s, right? Like where are the dieticians actually in the policy?

Colleen Delaney: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD: Right? And not just like an added benefit, like, ⁓ that would be a really nice ad, but like, how is it embedded in the policy? So I'm super passionate about that. I think, you know, I've advocated for dietitians for decades and we need to be at the table for a lot of this stuff. So if you're listening in, get involved, find universities, find programs that are doing these and say, Hey, I can provide nutrition services. And it doesn't have to be free nutrition services. we can bill for the work that we do. But that way we can get more data, more publications. So then we can then advocate on Capitol Hill to say, hey, we need mandatory medical nutrition therapy as part of this. So I could go on forever. If you haven't listened to the episode with Krista Yoder, she talks a lot about this in her Food is Medicine programming. ⁓ So this is something that she's been doing as an entrepreneur with her own business. So check out that episode. It's one of the early ones. Well, Colleen, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your story. And if you like the show, make sure you like, subscribe, leave a review. But most important, check out the next episode because every episode I bring on a different dietitian and nutrition expert to share their story and give you tips and advice on how to be successful.