Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

New curriculum for nutrition science

CHENNAI: The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has developed a curriculum for undergraduate students of nutrition science and food science and quality control, which will reflect the changes in food consumption patterns, lifestyle diseases, nutrition security, medical science and practice, the food industry and government policies.

The University of Madras will place the curriculum before its Board of Studies to consider adopting it at least in part, Vice-Chancellor S. Ramachandran said, releasing the curriculum here on Saturday. The Tamil Nadu Open University and several prominent autonomous institutions will also consider adapting, and adopting, the curriculum, according to delegates at a seminar on ‘Current nutrition challenges and the role of academic institutions’ hosted by the foundation.

Nutrition was initially offered as a branch of study in the undergraduate degree in home science, according to Rama Narayanan, a nutrition advisor with the foundation, who co-ordinated the development of the curriculum. Today, nutrition science has grown well beyond the domain of the home and is recognised as having an impact on health, agriculture, the food industry and economics, among other sectors.

The result is that a range of institutions, including medical universities, home science colleges and arts and science colleges, offer a slew of courses in nutrition that differ in length, content and objective.

A major lacuna in the curricula of these courses, says Usha Antony, assistant professor at Anna University’s Centre for Biotechnology, is that the practical components are weak.

Internships are difficult to get, as ties with industries and hospitals need to be strengthened, says Hema Malini, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Nutrition at Sri Ramachandra Medical College.

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