Nicklas Neuman

I am Associate Professor (docent) and currently employed as a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Food Studies, Nutrition and Dietetics (Kostvetenskap). My main interest regards the role of food and eating in the organization of social life. Here, my ambition is to synthesize social theory with evolutionary theory and insights from behavioral genetics.

Specific projects I am or have been involved in concern social influences on food intake, social and health implications of sharing meals or eating alone, gendered divisions of foodwork (both paid and unpaid), food and social differentiation, and the stigmatization of obesity. I am primarily experienced in qualitative methods, especially interviews, but with some experience of working with surveys, experimental methods, and systematic reviews as well.

My teaching is mostly focused on social scientific aspects of food and eating, but also research ethics, food consumption and environmental impacts, public health nutrition, the grading of evidence in human nutrition, supervision and examination of student theses (on bachelor and advanced level), and supervision of PhD students (at the moment, I am main supervisor to Amanda Björnwall, and co-supervisor to My Sjunnestrand and Ansung Kim). I have also edited Mat och ätande: Sociologiska perspektiv (Food and eating: Sociological perspectives), the first Swedish university textbook on the sociology of food (published by Studentlitteratur, 2019).

I am the principle investigator of "Följ maten: Svinnminskande åtgärder i butik; vad händer med maten hemma hos konsumenten?" ("Follow the food: Waste reducing retail actions; what happens when the food reaches the consumer?"), funded by Formas – a Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (dnr: 2023-01912). I also coordinate work package 3 in the research center PAN Sweden, plant-based proteins for health and wellbeing, also funded by FORMAS (dnr: 2020-02843).