Megan Hawley seeks to fight inequity in food accessibility.
What’s your role in public health?
I am currently working towards a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree with a concentration in Nutrition and Dietetics at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. I’m excited to use my degree to work in food access and security as well as nutrition education. I am passionate about health and wellness, and I have learned how eating well can act as preventative medicine and how inequity in health care often reaches past the doctor’s office and onto the dinner table.
After completing my Nutrition and Dietetics degree and receiving my registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) credentials, I hope to work alongside individuals and communities as a dietitian to share the importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle while fighting inequity in food accessibility. I would like to use my degree not only to pass on specialized nutrition education to individuals, but to create positive change in communities that do not have easy and affordable access to healthy, fresh foods.
At UNC Gillings, I am taking classes in both nutrition and in public health to have a holistic view of what influences the health of individuals and communities. Many factors influence a person’s diet and health — for example their financial constraints, limited transportation, proximity to a food desert, and the luxury of time to prepare foods and knowledge of how to cook them. I hope that with a public health lens, I can be a better dietitian who is able to cater to my patients’ needs by recognizing their unique context and the factors influencing their health.
I am also happy to have recently started working as the student well-being coordinator with the Gillings School’s Student Affairs team. I’m excited to plan events to promote all aspects of student well-being and work alongside the student mental health and well-being taskforce to brainstorm and implement measures we can take within the School.
The Well-being Wednesdays that Student Affairs hosts each aim to improve a different aspect of wellness, from workout classes to journaling stations to enneagram tests with analysis geared towards academic success. I also hope to create partnerships with different organizations on campus and in the Chapel Hill area to expand the resources available to students and make them more accessible and widely known.
Can you describe your focus area in one sentence?
Community nutrition – improving food access and nutrition education in communities!
What brought you to public health?
After college, I worked in Chicago for a year through a program called Amate House. My cohort of recent college graduates worked as full-time volunteers at various nonprofits around the city. I worked at a community center in the suburbs coordinating events for youth and senior citizens, as well as helping with food distribution programs.
When coordinating many of our health-related events, I was fortunate enough to meet different types of health practitioners in the area and learn about their experiences and initiatives to improve health outcomes in the community. I was particularly excited to work with one dietitian who started a local program for nutritious food preparation that provided boxes of fresh produce to low-income households. She recognized that even once a household has these foods, they may not have the time or knowledge to prepare them, so she attempted to work with them to break down these additional barriers.
At the community center, she led a class on meal-prepping to make healthy meals more accessible to people who felt they did not have time to prepare a nutritious dinner after a long day of work or while taking care of their kids. Community members learned to chop and store ingredients to use in the future, to make and freeze pasta sauces and marinades, and to create spice blends to dress up roasted veggies or meats. I loved this approach to nutrition through the lens of public health, recognizing the external barriers to diet modification rather than simply telling people to eat differently without understanding their individual struggles.
These relationships and experiences showed me how I could link my passion for food and nutrition with the field of public health to influence systemic issues such as food insecurity.
Can you describe a time when you have pivoted in your public health career?
When I started college, I was originally planning on attending medical school with the hope of becoming a pediatrician. I was drawn to the longevity of relationships that pediatricians build with their patients as they grow and develop over time. I think creating a trusting long-term relationship with a health care provider is important in creating a safe space to ask questions and fully explore personal health care experiences.
Throughout college, I realized the clinical aspect of medicine was not a good fit for me, but the interpersonal relationships still were. As I explored my passions and learned about other health fields, I stumbled upon dietetics and learned that it blended many of my passions, interests and skills. I solidified my decision while working with dietitians in sports nutrition during college and in community nutrition after graduation.
I am excited to continue this path with my MPH in Nutrition and Dietetics and eventually work in community nutrition with food access and education!
Megan on a hike during fall break.
Who are you when you’re at home?
In my free time I love to run, hike, cook, and spend time with friends and family! Since moving to North Carolina, I have enjoyed exploring the trails in the area, walking around Carrboro and Chapel Hill, trying new restaurants, going to the farmers market and reading a good book in my hammock when the weather is nice.
Read more interviews in The Pivot series.
Published: October 27, 2023
