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North Carolina’s HBCU Students Don’t Have Enough Access To Healthy Foods

St. Augustine's University is one of the ten HBCUs in the state where healthy food options are limited in the neighborhoods around campus.
St. Augustine's University is one of the ten HBCUs in the state where healthy food options are limited in the neighborhoods around campus.

A new study shows that healthy food options are limited in the communities around each of the state’s 10 historically Black colleges and universities.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Derrick Sauls, department chair of public health and exercise science at St. Augustine’s University about a new study on the lack of healthy food options near North Carolina's 10 HBCUs.Convenience stores, liquor stories, bakeries and candy shops are more plentiful within the 15-mile walking radius of each campus than grocery stores and markets with fresh produce. According to the research, 76% of the 1,414 stores offered unfavorable options, compared to just 24% that were favorable. Host Frank Stasio talks to Derrick Sauls, department chair of public health and exercise science at St. Augustine’s University, about the limited healthy food access around his own university, as well as his contributions to the larger study. 

Copyright 2020 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Stacia Brown comes to WUNC from Washington, DC, where she was a producer for WAMU’s daily news radio program, 1A. She’s the creator and host of two podcasts, The Rise of Charm City and Hope Chest. Her audio projects have been featured on Scene on Radio, a podcast of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; BBC 4’s Short Cuts; and American Public Radio’s Terrible, Thanks for Asking.