Nutrition with Foundation Year BSc (Hons)

The Foundation Year in Science is offered as an entry route to a biology, biomedical sciences, environmental or public health degree for students who don't yet meet the entry requirements for degree-level study. You enrol on a four-year course, which includes the one-year foundation course. If you complete this year successfully you progress directly to one of our three-year degree courses in this subject area. The number of students who progress to degree study are very high and in fact have gone on to become some of our most successful graduates.

Overview

Not all nutrition courses take a holistic approach to the subject. Our BSc Nutrition programme is interdisciplinary in its approach, exploring the link between diet, health, disease and performance. As nutritionists play a key role in creating and translating research into nutritional advice and policies, you’ll learn all about how the human body uses nutrients and the effects this has on health.

Beyond theoretical knowledge, our course will advance your employability by developing skills like communication, numeracy, research, team working, creative thinking, and more. Your new skills will be relevant in a variety of careers, especially dietician, nutritional therapist, and science writer. If you’d like to focus on nutrition directly after graduation you’ll have the chance to work as a nutritional advisor, food scientist, heath trainer, or sports nutritionist.

Typical employers of nutrition graduates include the NHS, Public Health England, food manufacturers, plus the catering and hospitality industry.

Course content

At the beginning of your course, you will review the basic sciences related to nutrition - molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, human nutrition, food science and generic scientific and employability skills. As a second year student, you will explore advanced topics in nutrition, including the relationship between diet and health, nutrition through the human lifecycle, mechanisms by which diet influences human health and disease, food policy, and research and employability skills. In your final year, you will examine specialised topics in nutrition, including clinical nutrition, sport and exercise nutrition, and public health nutrition as well as carry out your own research.

What will you gain?

As well as an in-depth knowledge of the relationship between diet and health, human performance and disease, you will gain the practical skills to assess the nutritional status of humans in health or disease. You will be aware of the factors that influence food choice and nutritional policies. Additionally, you will understand the nutritional requirements at both molecular and population levels for humans. You will also have an appreciation of the need to be commercially aware and innovative, and understand the importance of research in the advancement of nutritional knowledge and evidence based practice.

Careers

This degree can be applied to a wide variety of careers such as dietitian, nutritional therapist, science writer, or product quality researcher. You could choose to focus directly on nutrition and work in such roles as nutrition advisor, sports nutritionist, food scientist, food technologist, health promotion specialist, health trainer, teacher, academic or researcher.

Typical employers of nutrition graduates can include:

• NHS
• Public Health England
• food manufacturing industry
• catering and hospitality
• grocery and related retailing