Nutrition

Course description

**Please note this course is subject to revalidation**

This four-year course will give you the theoretical understanding and practical skills that you will need to build a rewarding career as a nutritionist. On this course you will learn the scientific and social importance of **Nutrition** in a modern university with advanced equipment. Integrated real-world voluntary experience will foster your practical skills. The nutrition course at QMU is accredited by the Association for Nutrition (AfN)* which will allow you to register with the AfN upon graduation.

The field of nutrition affects everyone in the world every day and has grown in importance in recent years. The science of nutrition employs evidence-based approaches to highlight the relationship between our diet and health, and it enables us to optimise health and prevent disease.

What and how we eat is vital to individual and community health and it is an engaging and rewarding subject to study. If we are what we eat, then nutrition can tell us a lot about who we are, how we live and how we can improve the health of society.

**Why QMU**?

- **Staff expertise**: You will learn from registered nutritionists and experts in the field who are actively researching some of the most interesting and influential topics in the field. QMU has wide ranging and widely recognised expertise in both health and in food science, that is home to the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation.

- **Excellent facilities**: You will build professional proficiency in our specialist labs, using advanced equipment and proven research techniques. The practical teaching facilities include specialist microbiology, chemistry, food handling, and nutritional assessment laboratories.

- **Professional accreditation/registration**: The course is accredited by the Association for Nutrition (AfN) and on graduation with an honours degree you can register with the AfN as an associate nutritionist*.

**The course in brief**:

The science of nutrition employs evidence-based approaches to highlight the relationship between our diet and health, and it enables us to optimise health and prevent disease. The science of nutrition is concerned with how food affects the functioning of the living organism. It includes the study of food composition, how it is digested and absorbed, the production of energy, elimination of wastes and all the syntheses that are essential for growth, maintenance, and reproduction across the life cycle.

**On this course you will**:
- Learn the academic principles behind food and gain practical skills in our advanced laboratories;

- Learn how to think critically on a larger scale. What are the social, political, cultural and environmental factors affecting what we eat? How do nutritionists use evidence-based approaches to optimise health, prevent disease, and support behaviour change at an individual, community and population level?; and

- Learn about the most current issues in the field of nutrition. For example, how does our gut microbiome composition impact our health? How do nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics influence current practice? What are the current/contemporary practices and policies in the field of nutrition?

Subjects

• Nutrition
• Dietetics