Course overview
Public health nutrition: ideology, individuals & industry aims to develop critical thinking around contemporary challenges to nutrition. It will extend ideas learned in Reflect, Research, Resolve: Questions in Health to challenges that are specific to the field of nutrition and improving the nutritional health of populations. This course will draw from case studies to understand higher-level influences on the nutritional health of a population. Attention will be paid to upstream factors such as Big-Food, supermarkets, food advertising, as well as government action and policy such as fortification, taxes, regulation and law. Students will identify, evaluate and reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies for improving the nutritional health of the population.
Course learning outcomes
- Identify primary functions of public health nutrition, examples of frameworks for preventive health in nutrition, and types of prevention.
- Explain factors influencing major nutrition issues within a population.
- Explain the roles of various stakeholders in contemporary population nutrition problems and interventions.
- Communicate the advantages and disadvantages of different policy levers to address population nutrition challenges.
- Appraise information from a wide variety of sources, emphasising core concepts around impediments and enablers to the nutritional health of populations.