Nutrition

20/03/2020 12:16

UFSC Nutrition program aims to prepare professionals who are committed to the improvement of people’s quality of life. The nutritionist applies knowledge of dietetics and considers nutrition as a fundamental factor influencing human growth and development throughout all life stages, from gestation to childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.

Students are trained to perform the following tasks: assessment and monitoring of the nutritional status of the population (preschoolers, children, adolescents, athletes, among others); evaluation of the quality of school meals; surveillance of the nutritional status of the population in schools and health units; elaboration of quality projects for the production of collective and commercial meals; disease prevention, recovery and health promotion of the population, through nutritional counseling and diet therapy; development of experimental research on food; and development of education actions on health and nutrition for individuals and communities.

Since the early stages, courses provide contact opportunities with the professional activities. From the third year on, theoretical-practical courses are offered in the fields of basic nutrition, clinical nutrition, experimental nutrition, public health, management of food service units and sports nutrition. The University Hospital (HU) as well as other public and private partner institutions are learning settings for practical courses, short internships, and curricular and extracurricular internships. Students can develop activities at several well-equipped laboratories (Experimental Nutrition, Nutritional Biochemistry I and II, Dietetics, Anthropometry and Ergonomics, Means for Collective Feeding, Means for Nutritional Education) and at the HU’s outpatient nutrition clinics.

UFSC Nutrition program is the only one in Brazil that has a metabolic unit, located at the University Hospital, which enables studies on the absorption of food by the human body, and the only one to have a Junior Enterprise in Nutrition. Students can apply for scholarships in the Tutorial Education Program (PET), offered by the Ministry of Education, and for research, outreach or student tutoring scholarships, besides working as volunteers in projects of the Department of Nutrition. Graduates can follow a career in the fields of clinical nutrition, public health, experimental nutrition, management of collective and commercial food service units, and sports nutrition.

Nutritionists work in a number of environments, such as hospitals, clinics, spas, health units, child care centers, collective and commercial food service units, industries, sports centers, clubs, gyms, companies, non-profit organizations or public institutions engaged with food programs. They can also work in the areas of marketing and consulting, customer service and guidance, research on new food and food products, diet and low-calorie food, quality assurance in the production of meals, and in programs for the adoption of adequate eating habits and practices for different populations, working in multidisciplinary teams.

Profile of the graduate:

The Nutrition graduate should be a socially-responsible professional, with broad qualification; autonomous in the pursuit of knowledge; sensitive and critical in regard to the social, economic, political and cultural reality; able to understand the human being and the world in their entirety; and capable of acting as agent of transformation, working in a committed, ethical, sustainable and interdisciplinary way in all fields of knowledge where food and nutrition are central to the promotion, maintenance and restoration of health of individuals and the community.

Courses are held during the day.

Program Length:
10 semesters (5 years)
Faculty members:
40
Phone:
+55 48 3721 9486
Website: www.nutricao.ufsc.br