Course overview
This course will provide an overview of nutrition, diet, lifestyle and health. This includes consideration of the nutritional requirements of a healthy human throughout the life stages, as well as specific requirements in the instance of food allergy and food intolerance. Nutrition, lifestyle factors and chronic disease are a focus of this course, with emphasis on the links between diet: obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and osteoporosis. As a contrast, malnutrition, underweight, world hunger and the global environment are also considered. Different nutritional assessment methods, including dietary collection methods are discussed. Students are required to critically research the association between a specified chronic disease and diet, prepare a scientific report and translate their findings into a document which provides relevant nutritional advice to the general population. Use of a dietary analysis program to analyse a weighed food record allows comparison of the analysis against current nutrient reference values and healthy eating guidelines. It also gives students an insight into the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods of collecting dietary intake data.