Maita Lee, RDN is the Supervisor and the Outreach Coordinator at Saint Paul Ramsey County Women Infants and Children (WIC).
Provide us with a brief description of your job: I supervise staff and find different ways to connect the community to WIC and other resources.
What do you love about what you do? I love that I am able to help families connect to healthy foods and resources. I also enjoy working with other organizations to find ways to improve the health of the general community.
What are the challenges? Challenges include finding ways to effectively reach the community and then when we do reach the community, how to concisely relay the information we want to share in the most meaningful way. I would also say another challenge right now is changing our policy/procedures and food package to be useful and beneficial to our participants at WIC.
How has your MAND membership benefited you? It has benefited me mostly by networking. Now that I am more involved in MAND (because I don’t have to be studying in my textbooks and taking exams haha) and now that I am the Director of the Diversity Inclusion Equity and Belonging Committee, I hope to find more ways to utilize MAND.
What do you think is the future of nutrition and dietetics? I think the future of nutrition and dietetics is diversity in foods. There’s so much more to a healthy diet than the standard My Plate American Diet. Another part is technology, especially now that COVID-19 has increasingly shifted people towards relying on technology. If we can use technology to bridge people to nutrition, it will reach a larger amount of people and may health reduce nutritional health disparities.
What are your favorite activities/hobbies? My favorites hobbies include reading and running. I also love BTS and binge on their music and videos. Spending time with family is also important to me
What is your favorite restaurant in Minnesota? If only I can say my Mother’s kitchen! I think my favorite restaurant right now is Thai Basil in St Paul, but it frequently changes.
About MAND
Minnesota Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (MAND) is an affiliate of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics. We are the largest professional organization of nutrition health professionals in Minnesota, dedicated to optimizing Minnesotans' health through food and nutrition.