2024/25 Undergraduate Programme Catalogue

BSc Nutrition

Total credits: 360

Entry requirements:

Entry Requirements are available on the Course Search entry

School/Unit responsible for the parenting of students and programme:

School of Food Science and Nutrition

Examination board through which the programme will be considered:

Relevant QAA Subject Benchmark Groups:

Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Food, Nutrition and Consumer Sciences.

Professional Body Offering Accreditation:

AfN (Association for Nutrition)

Programme specification:

The information on this page is accurate for students entering the programme in 2023/2024 or before. For students entering the programme from September 2024 or after, you can find the details of your programme: BSc Nutrition(For students entering from September 2024 onwards)

Nutrition is a fast-moving discipline that focuses on understanding the role of foods, nutrients and the overall “diet” in maintaining health and preventing disease. Nutritionists play an important role in providing and implementing evidence-based nutritional guidelines and dietary recommendations, meaning the scope of your future career options as a Registered Nutritionist is wide-ranging.
Throughout the course, you'll learn a combination of core nutrition topics, alongside a range of optional and skills development modules to give you the technical skills, specialist knowledge and professional experience you'll need to pursue a career in nutrition. Your studies will be guided by our internationally recognised cutting-edge research and innovation in nutrition. You will benefit from our strong collaborations and partnerships with industry, the commercial sector and our professional body the Association for Nutrition (AfN) enabling you to develop the required literacies, skills and competencies that are relevant to your needs and ambitions as a nutritionist.
At the start of the course, you'll gain solid foundations in food and nutrition, exploring their relationship to health, including where food is sourced from and how that fits within a ‘sustainable' global food system framework. You'll also cover aspects key to providing a safe and healthy diet, including food preservation and sensory evaluation. Throughout the course, you'll build on these foundations, understanding how nutrients in food are used in the body and how individuals' nutritional requirements change across various stages of life, with consideration to how these relate to specific groups of people. You'll cover the nutritional content in food, the role of food choices and the food environment that shapes dietary behaviours whilst studying the most up-to-date nutrition and dietary recommendations and defining what's considered “healthy” and for whom. You'll learn about the scientific, social, behavioural and ethical considerations that inform current public health advice and the nutrition profession, all within the context of current issues such as the global obesity problem, personalised nutrition, plant-based diets and sustainability. You'll explore how and why people make choices relating to what they eat and drink and how this knowledge can be applied in public health promotion and nutritional education.

By the final year of your programme, you'll explore more specific and specialised areas of current thinking in nutrition, food and public health, reflecting on how these can be applied to solve real-world local and global nutritional challenges.
Each year of this course is designed around a combination of compulsory core modules, which provide essential foundational subject-specific knowledge and skills. You'll also have the opportunity to study optional modules and tailor your degree to suit your interests or career aspirations.
In addition to subject-specific modules, we also offer a range of skills development modules that'll give you an insight into possible careers, the variety of professional roles that our nutrition graduates go into and how to enhance your employability. This continuous professional development – combined with the technical knowledge you'll develop through teaching and research activities, will not only ensure you have an extensive skill set and knowledge in nutrition, but the confidence to apply them in the workplace once you graduate.
Discovery modules are available throughout your degree, as long as you're taking enough credits of your ow n subject for that year.
Each academic year, you'll take a total of 120 credits.

Year 1
You'll develop a grounding in the foundational concepts in the field of nutrition. You'll explore different themes, including food sourcing and production within a sustainable food system, key food nutrients, food preparation, preservation methods and food safety (including the role of food microbiology), the science behind sensory aspects of food and drink and key concepts in human nutrition. You'll also be introduced to statistical analysis methods for food and nutrition data.
Throughout the year, you'll have opportunities to develop your laboratory and experimentation skills through laboratory work as well as transferable skills that are crucial for your success throughout your programme. Consequently, the portfolio of core modules in your first year will allow you to gain insight into the origins of food (including consumption trends and behaviour, and socio-economic, political and sustainability issues), the role of food as a carrier of essential nutrients with specific roles in the body and appreciate how food and its constituent components affect health, which will set the foundation for your studies in subsequent years.

Year 2
In your second year, you'll deepen your nutrition knowledge. Learning will focus on understanding the scientific basis of nutritional recommendations and the impact of nutrition on health, for different population groups at different life stages, e.g., pregnancy, childhood, older age. You'll delve deeper into the integration between human physiology and nutrition, nutrient metabolism and explore how the metabolic demand for nutrients varies during the life course. You'll also be introduced to the concepts and methodologies such as molecular nutrition and nutritional biochemistry (including key biochemical pathways, epigenetics and the gut microbiome) which allow scientists to study food choices and how dietary patterns may be linked to health and disease. The relationship between nutrition and physical activity will also be explored in the context of the global obesity problem. You'll also investigate at how and why people make food choices, barriers to dietary change and what strategies can be employed to promote healthier dietary behaviours.
This year will provide a core programme of research and career skills training, which will build on key skills explored in year 1, including use of specialist software, careers and employability and professional aspects of nutrition roles in industry and public health settings.

Year 3
You'll explore more specific and specialised areas of current thinking in food and nutrition, nutrition-related behaviour and public health. This year encompasses key considerations around what is needed to ensure target populations have access to a healthy diet, via approaches such as national-level policy, which will give you an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for nutrition policy for a more sustainable and equitable food system. By working on food product projects alongside your peers, you'll further appreciate the role of nutritionists, industry, government and consumers in food product development. Your team project based on new product development (NPD), will explore the role of food science and nutritionists in developing and marketing new healthy food ranges for food manufacturers. You'll apply your knowledge and skills to designing new foods, from concept, through formulation and processing, to sensory evaluation, packaging and marketing. The project ends with a pitch to industry and nutritional experts.
You'll also explore some clinically related aspects of nutrition and the concept of personalised nutrition, as well as the role of diet in specific diseases, e.g., cardiovascular disease, cancer.
A major part of our nutrition degree is your final year project work. Here, you'll undertake a real-life, independent capstone research study, tog perience will develop your research skills, including practicalities of doing research, from conception of a topic to delivering your findings. You'll define aims and objectives, planning and working through different elements of your research and effectively presenting your findings and conclusions. You'll also develop transferable skills such as problem solving, communication and professional competencies which are all transferable into your future career when you graduate.
You'll be given a selection of topics, relating to the nutrition research activity in the School, from which you can choose one.

One-year optional work placement or study abroad
During your course, you'll be given the opportunity to advance your skill set and experience further. You can apply to either undertake a one-year work placement working in a professional setting, relevant to the degree and the students' interests, or studying nutrition at one of our partner universities worldwide, both of which provide valuable experience and personal development.
Both schemes add an additional year to the course, taking the total course length to 4 years.

Accredited by the Association for Nutrition (AfN)
AfN accreditation supports the development of nutritionists' skills by recognising university courses that deliver evidence-based nutrition education to a professional level. Our programme's accreditation recognises that our programme meets the quality standards established by the AfN, and upon graduation students will be eligible to apply for direct entry at Registered Associate level to the Association for Nutrition.

Year1 - View timetable

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]

Compulsory modules:

Candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules

Discovery modules:

Candidates will be required to study 10 credits of discovery modules

Year2 - View timetable

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]

Candidates will be required to study 120 credits

Compulsory modules:

Optional modules:

Students are required to study one the following optional modules:

Students can take the 20 credit FOOD2160 if they combine their 10 credit discovery module with the optional module. If choosing this option it must be entered manually at the Student Support Office.

Discovery modules:

Students are required to study 10 credits of discovery modules.

Year3 - View timetable

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]

Candidates will be required to study 120 credits

Compulsory modules:

Students must study 100 credits of compulsory modules

Optional modules:

Students take 10 credits of optional modules, choosing from two options:

Discovery modules:

students are required to study 10 credits of discovery modules

Last updated: 11/10/2024 15:16:06

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