Feeding Behaviour and Nutritional Status of Populations

The course aims to provide the student with the scientific and cultural tools to understand and interpret the feeding behavior of modern humans in the light of their evolutionary history and of the related transformations of their relationships with the environment. Moreover, it aims to provide the competences to understand the nature of the human body composition and nutritional state, along with the theoretical and technical principles on which their experimental study is based. Finally, it aims to provide the bases to understand the impact of the feeding behavior on body composition and nutritional state.

At the end of the course, students should have acquired the technical-scientific notions required to understand the effect of alimentary habits on body composition. In addition, the student should have acquired the competencies necessary to understand and to apply the methods for body composition and nutritional state assessment as well as to understand the principles for the elaboration of tailored dietary plans aimed to reach and maintain an ideal body composition.
Students should have acquired good judgment skills in the interpretation of the nutritional state of a subject and in the design of the appropriate plans to maintain and even improve it, if required. Moreover, they should have acquired the communication and empathy skills useful to induce subjects to understand and be compliant with dietary indications and suggestions.