Cathy Nonas, MS, CDN is an advocate for policies and practices that address health equity and nutrition. Since 2017, Nonas has been the CEO of Meals For Good Inc, a 501c3 public charity that operates with a dual mission: to support underfunded food pantries with grants for fresh produce, most of which is grown locally, and to supply the missing groceries that families facing food insecurity want and need.
Prior to Meals for Good, Nonas was a Senior Advisor in the Center for Health Equity at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She has also served as the department’s Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control and as Director of Physical Activity and Nutrition Programs. Her work in public policy in New York has involved changing the city’s Health Code to improve nutrition in early childcare centers, regulating restaurant chain calorie-posting, creating the NYC Green Cart initiative and growing the country’s largest municipal farmers market incentive, Health Bucks.
A clinical dietitian who spent her early years at the federally-funded New York City Obesity Research Center, Nonas has also been an assistant clinical professor at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and a member of the National Institutes of Health committee to update obesity and lifestyle guidelines. She is a member of New York City’s Food Service Establishment Advisory Board and has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including American Journal of Public Health, Preventing Chronic Disease and Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Nonas received an M.S. degree in clinical nutrition at New York University and a B.S. degree in Nutritional Sciences at Hunter College, City University of New York.