Demystify the complex and conflicting messages we hear about diet, health and lifestyle today, with this free online course. Gain skills to evaluate nutrition information and apply to your own diet. This course will help you understand the scientific basis of human nutrition, and current nutrition concepts and controversies.

Enroll in course

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Each week, we’ll look at a different theme:

• The makings of a ‘healthy diet’: What are the principal constituents of food? Which components of your diet can promote wellbeing and reduce the risk of diseases?

• Why do we eat what we eat? What are the ‘drivers’ that influence our food choices? How do we make sense of available nutrition information?

• Food and disease: Can you really eat your way to health?

• Nutrition fads, myths and the plain truth: Is there such a thing as a ‘miracle’ diet? Do ‘superfoods’ exist? Or are our genes to be blamed for our current nutritional habits?

What topics will you cover?

By the conclusion of the course, learners will be able to:

1. Identify the principle constituents of food, along with foods and dietary patterns that meet current UK based dietary recommendations and are associated with reduced risk of common chronic diseases.

2. Understand and evaluate nutrition information, advertising, and news in the media.

3. Apply nutrition knowledge to personal food choices and dietary patterns

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

- Describe components of a healthy diet

- Identify principles of healthy eating

- Apply principles learned to assess their own dietary intake

- Develop an understanding of good examples of evidence based research

- Calculate their own Body Mass Index (BMI)

- Explore the influences on food choice and eating behaviors

- Identify current nutrition controversies

- Discuss their own views on food and eating