Department of Nutrition and Dietetics

Nutrition is the study of the influence of food intake on health and wellbeing. The importance of nutrition in the primary prevention of disease (public health nutrition) is recognised by governments in both developing and developed countries. Public health nutrition involves studying the relationships between dietary intake and disease using the tools of nutritional epidemiology and applying the knowledge gained to help prevent disease in the population (nutrition intervention).

Dietetics is the application of nutritional knowledge particularly tailored to individual needs. The practice of dietetics is sometimes based in hospitals, where it focuses on the use of diet in the treatment and management of disease. However, dietitians also play a role in community nutrition education, research and the media.

The Department currently comprises 18 full time academic staff with a wide range of research interests, supported by part time lecturers, research workers, seven technical and secretarial staff, and approximately 160 undergraduate and 50 graduate students.

Please see the Diabetes & Nutritional Sciences Research Division entry under graduate research programmes, for details of research activity in nutritional sciences.

The College library has the most extensive collection of nutrition books and journals in the UK. The Department is well equipped with sophisticated analytical equipment, such as gas-liquid chromatographs, mass spectrometry and HPLC, enabling analyses to be carried out on food, blood and other tissues. It also has a metabolic unit for conducting human research studies. There is also a food preparation laboratory for teaching the practical aspects of diet therapy. The Department is well equipped with computers and software for nutritional analyses and statistical analyses. There is a thriving Student Nutrition Society which has an exciting programme of outside speakers often on controversial topics. There are also opportunities to attend meetings at the Royal Society of Medicine Forum on Food and Health.