How do dollar stores replacing grocery stores in rural North Carolina impact the health of community members? Does the distribution of food outlets within a city disproportionately benefit certain neighborhoods while excluding others?
Nicholas studies food environments the physical, cultural, economic and social factors that impact a community’s opportunity to access food and how they shape people’s diets and health.
“Nutrition isn’t just simply looking in a petri dish and understanding how we metabolize choline,” says Nicholas. “We really have to interrogate and come to terms with so many different societal and practical aspects of how we live and how we engage in the world. Nutrition and food really get to the heart of it.”