Marcia Kyle, RD, LD, CDE, a dietician at the Pen Bay Healthcare Diabetes and Nutrition Care Center, was recently named Outstanding Dietitian of the Year by the American Dietetic Association.

Dona Forke, MS, RD, president of the Maine Dietetic Association, (at right in photo), presented the award at a ceremony in Augusta at the MDA's annual meeting. 

The MDA is the Maine affiliate of the American Dietetic Association, the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals with more than 68,000 members. ADA is committed to improving the nation's health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy.

Each year, the American Dietetic Association names one outstanding dietician from each state. The 2008 awards were highlighted in the September issue of the association's journal.

Kyle received her bachelor of science degree in food and nutrition from the University of Texas at Austin and completed a coordinated undergraduate program in dietetics. She is a certified diabetes educator at the PBH Diabetes and Nutrition Care Center, located at the Kno-Wal-Lin Building, 170 Pleasant St., Rockland and online at pbmc.org/diabetes. Kyle also teaches nutrition education in the Penobscot Bay Medical Center cardiac rehab program, provides health coaching for PBH employees and serves on the hospital's diabetes task force.

Kyle, a Rockport resident, started her volunteer work with MDA in 1995, serving two terms as the group's counsel on practice as well as on the group's conference planning and public policy committee's. She edits the MDA website and newsletter, eatrightmaine.org. In 2004 she was elected to the American Dietetic Association's House of Delegates representing Maine dietitians registered at the national level, and most recently was appointed by the president of the American Dietetic Association to a position on ADA's Legislative and Public Policy Committee.

In attendance at the awards ceremony was the immediate past president of the American Dietetic Association, Dr. Judith Gilbride, chairman of the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, as well as 120 registered dietitians, diet technicians and dietetic students from the University of Maine.=