Integrating Nutrition Into Mental Health Care

Ruth Leyse Wallace, PhD received her B.S. degree from The University of California at Davis, earned her M.S. degree while completing her dietetic internship at The University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, and was awarded her Ph.D. from The University of Arizona in Tucson. Her dissertation proposed and validated a Metaparadigm of Clinical Dietetics, an organizing structure for the body of knowledge used by clinical dietetics.

She practiced clinical dietetics in the areas of mental health, eating disorders, substance abuse and general psychiatry at Osawatomie State Hospital in Osawatomie, Kansas, at The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital in San Diego, California and at HCA hospital in Plano, Texas. While in Topeka, in the early 1980s she established one of the first private practices for nutrition counseling in the state. During this time she was commissioned by Fleming Food company, (part of IGA - Independent Grocers of America), to create one of the first sets of consumer nutrition education materials to be exhibited in grocery stores. Dr. Leyse Wallace served as an adjunct faculty member at Pima County College in Tucson and Mesa Community College in San Diego.

Dr. Leyse Wallace has published three books: Nutrition and Mental Health. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, Publishers, Boca Raton, FL., Linking Nutrition to Mental Health: A Scientific Exploration. iUniverse, Inc., Lincoln, NE. and The Metaparadigm of Clinical Dietetics: Derivation and Applications. also with iUniverse, Inc., as well as chapters in two nutrition textbooks: Integrative and Functional Medical Nutrition Therapy - Principles and Practices. Chapter 30. edited by Diana Noland, RDN & Jeanne Drisko, MD. 2020, and in Krause's Food and the Nutrition Care Process, Chapter 41: "MNT in Psychiatric and Cognitive Disorders" by Teitelbaum, Jacob, Alan Weiss, Geri Brewster, and Ruth Leyse Wallace. Kathy McMahon, editor.

A fifty-year member of The American Dietetic Association (ADA), now The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, she has been an active contributor to the Behavioral Health Nutrition dietetic practice group in the Academy serving as Mental Health Resource Professional on the Executive Committee and as co-author of the 2018 revision of the Standards of Practice and Standards of Professional Performance for the BHN dietetic practice group. Dr. Leyse Wallace has contributed articles to the group newsletter and presented educational webinars for BHN. In 2010 she was presented the BHN Excellence in Practice award.

Among others, Dr. Leyse Wallace has presented at meetings of The National Alliance on Mental Illness (2012), The Department of Integrative Medicine at University of Kansas Medical Center (2013), and The American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (2003) and a Symposium on the Nutrition Screening Initiative in Washington D.C. (1997).

In 2017 Dr. Leyse Wallace was the recipient of The Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by the Marquis Who's Who Publications Board.

Now living in Chandler, Arizona, Dr. Leyse Wallace continues to enjoy writing and corresponding with colleagues, friends and family.