Nikki has long been interested in nutrition and the role it plays in our everyday lives. She grew up like most people, eating canned or frozen veggies and macaroni and cheese from the blue box. Her parents didn’t know any differently and raised her as they had been. Seeing family members go through having illnesses, battling diseases and losing their lives from preventable diseases further impacted her. Nikki saw that misinformation was a major issue within health care today. Researching her own health-related conditions that specialists couldn’t assist her with was another major force in her choice to have a career in functional nutrition. Nikki left the medical field and attended The Nutrition Therapy Institute. The decision to practice functional nutrition is because it looks at each person as a whole, not separate parts. It allows her to work with people as individuals, knowing that no one-size-fits-all approach will suffice.