What Is Nutrition and Dietetics?
Nutrition and Dietetics is a multifaceted methodical course that entails the study of how food substances offer nourishment for the sustenance of life. It involves the study of numerous concepts on how food interacts with your body as well as its effects on your health. Apart from researching how food interacts in your body, Nutrition and Dietetics assesses the effects of food and how it impacts the way you function. It explores how the body resists diseases, mental function, physiology during exercise, foetal growth and development etc.
The course borrows from a variety of other fields including biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology, anthropology, public health and psychology from which it researches the impacts of beliefs, attitudes, culture and preferences of food selections. Nutrition and Dietetics also focusses to determine how food substances influence the development of diet-related conditions including coronary heart disease (CHD), renal conditions etc and how to manage them. Additionally, the course addresses the malnutrition burden (under-nutrition and over-nutrition) in society as it seeks to promote strategies to mitigate its severity and extent.
What Are The Aims Of The Nutrition and Dietetics Course?
In essence, the course aims to:
- Impart nutrition professionals with adequate knowledge, professional skills and expertise in managing nutrition challenges sustainably and effectively.
- Create awareness to the public on proper food selections that facilitate health and reduce the risk of infections.
- Identify and study current issues on nutrition to provide updated information on nutrition and related concerns.
- Examine existing trends in the nutrition discipline and utilize the collected information to advance its curricula.
- Implement nutrition principles in promoting public health and sustainable projects.
- Broaden nutrition knowledge by performing further research and invention.
The Difference Between Nutrition And Dietetics
Noteworthy however, whereas Nutrition and Dietetics focusses on food and health, there are distinctions in the scope of what entails nutrition and what entails dietetics. Nutrition deals with promoting healthy choices by advocating for healthy foods; and it also seeks to identify reasons why individuals opt to select the foods they do, although they may be aware that such foods are unhealthy and could posit undesirable repercussions.
Dietetics on the other hand, deals with food management in that it focusses on advising patients on food modifications by recommending what they should consume to achieve, restore or maintain optimum health, and aid in the management of conditions.
What To Consider
Supposing you wish to pursue the Nutrition and Dietetics field, you should go for it because it is not only interesting but it is also very applicable. What you learn from the course will allow you to promote healthy food choices and help others as well, you will garner professional skills useful in handling nutrition-related conditions ,you will learn how food is utilized in your body to allow proper functioning, in large scale – the issue on food and nutrition security in your country, the importance of various nutrients and their roles in your body, diet therapy and its relevance, meal management and food preparation, food hygiene, nutrition interventions, how to apply nutrition assessment methods etc.
In our following post, we will distinguish between nutritionists and dietitians, and identify their skills and qualifications.