Human Nutrition and Dietetics

Current trends in health care are focused on reaching the highest health level during a person’s life, and, in order to do so, priority is given to prevention and promotion rather than to curing. Today, having good eating habits is, without any doubts, related to being healthy. This is the reason why in every country's health systems there is the figure of the expert on dietetics and human nutrition as leader agent, who, in order to promote health and prevent illnesses, is in charge of managing nutrition and dietetics aspects of the population.

Programme Description.  The new Bachelor's degree consists of 6 modules:

• During the first module students will be taught fundamentals of the structure and function of the human body, biochemical aspects of human nutrition, statistical basics on Health Science and psychological, social and cultural aspects of food.
• The second module will be focused on knowing the foods classification, chemical composition, nutritional value, physical/chemical and functional properties, and modifications that food undergoes in technological processes and their sensory analysis.
• The third module deals with food hygiene and safety, organization and management of food services, food traceability and food companies' management.
• The forth module is about the study of nutrients and human nutrition, the formulation of diets for ill and healthy people, the nutritional status assessment, the nutritional diseases and legislation, and the deontology in the practice of dietetics.
• The fifth module is focused on the health-nutrition relation, epidemiological studies, nutrition and dietetics intervention programs, nutritional education and the planning and development of health and nutrition projects.
• And there is eventually a module that includes the internship and the final degree project.

The Campus is equipped with suitable technologies for practice and theory teaching, which allows students to carry out high-level research on Nutrition.

Career opportunities.  The educational and competence objectives on our Plan of Studies are designed so that graduate students will be capable to carry out their professional activity in a responsible and efficient way in the following fields:

• In the clinical setting, graduate students will be prepared to decide on the feeding of a person or group of people, whether they are healthy or ill, taking into account their physiological and/or pathological needs and their social, socioeconomic, cultural and religious preferences.
• In the community and public health settings, graduate students will be able to act on the population, developing and participating in epidemiological studies, intervention programs about nutrition and feeding, as well as in food and nutritional policy programs whose objective is promoting health and preventing diseases by way of a healthy and equilibrated feeding.
• In the social and mass catering setting, graduate students will manage and participate in the organization and development of the food service; they will coordinate and participate in continuing education activities; they will be involved in issues related to food quality and safety, and specially in training food handlers.
• In the industry field, graduate students will advise on product innovation, evaluation of food nutritional quality and healthy properties and on social marketing related to food.