Nutrition is a health discipline focused on the science of food and human nourishment, exploring the key role it plays in health and treating nutritional or metabolic disorders. Practitioners of nutrition may be qualified doctors working in hospital or other medical settings, or private nutritionists helping individual clients.
Postgraduate students in nutrition can choose to further specialise in several areas, ranging from nutritional sciences to nutrition and behaviour change, global public health nutrition and more.
There are over 100 postgraduate courses in nutrition to choose from, across nearly 50 UK universities, including master’s and doctoral study options.
What to expect
To register with the Association of Nutrition (AfN) you will need to have completed an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification accredited by AfN so bear this in mind when doing your research.
Entry requirements for a postgraduate course do vary but you will tend to need an undergraduate degree in a related subject such as a science.
Some of the topics covered in a postgraduate nutrition course include public health nutrition, sports nutrition, nutritional toxicology, physiology and biochemistry as well as food science and technology.
On successful completion of a postgraduate qualification, you might become a nutritionist, food safety auditor, health promotion specialist or food technologist for example. You could also use your postgraduate to specialise in a certain area of nutrition and use it to advance your existing career.