PHS202: Nutrition In Health and Disease
Nutrition in Health and Diseases is a second-semester course. It is a three-credit degree course available to all students offering a Bachelor of (B.PHS.) Public Health Science (PHS). Nutrition is one of the essential keys to developing and maintaining quality health throughout the life cycle. Poor dietary intakes coupled with a sedentary lifestyle on the other hand, have been associated with life-threatening non-communicable chronic diseases and death. Nutrition in Health and Disease is a course that describes the importance of nutrition in attaining optimal health, productivity, healthful reproductive system, freedom from infections and non-infectious diseases, and industrial, social and mental developments.
The course consists of modules with units and a course guide. This course guide briefly discusses what the course is about, what course materials you will be using and how you can work with these materials. In addition, it advocates some general guidelines for the amount of time you are likely to spend on each unit of the course in order to complete it successfully.
Consequently, after going through the course, you should be able to;
- Define nutrition and other common terminologies in nutrition.
- Describe the nutritional behavior of Homo sapiens before and after agricultural and industrial revolutions.
- Demonstrate the knowledge of essential nutrients in food composition. Identify major nutrient requirements through the life cycle.
- Describe the application of nutritional knowledge in food purchasing, preparation, and presentation.
- Identify at least three locally available foodstuffs in the preparation of complementary feeding.
- List three methods of assessing an individual's nutritional status or that of a community.
- Demonstrate at least two methods of improving the nutrition intake of a community.
- Demonstrate the application of nutritional knowledge and principles in the care of protein-energy malnutrition, hypertension, and diabetes.
- Describe the concept of nutritional genomics.
This course entails that you spend a lot of time to read. You are advised to make yourself available to participate in the online tutorial sessions where you will have the opportunity of comparing your knowledge with that of other learners.