My Opinion on An Online Course in Nutrition

1.  
2. When I wrote those three articles on medicine, health and nutrition below:
3. 1.       Nutrition Scientists Aiding the Nutritionist in Knowledge
4. https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2023/
5. 2.       The Medical Doctor vs The Medical Scientist in Medical Advances and Recognition
6. https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-medical-doctor-vs-medical-scientist.html
7. 3.       The Profession of Nutrition vs The Role of Food Scientist in Research and in Industry
8. https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-profession-of-nutrition-vs-role-of.html
9. I have a few feedback on the scope for employment for a student studying nutrition. Another friend of mine, Dato Dr Ong Eng Leong PhD who is a specialist in polymer chemistry in rubber wrote seeking my opinion about a 8 months online course he wanted to take here.
10.  https://www.alphanutrition.my/en/
11. According to the course syllabus in the above link, the content below says:
12. International Authoritative Certification 
13. This certification is recognized globally in many countries, such as Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, France, Taiwan, and many more...But it does not say if it is recognized in Malaysia if you intend to practise nutrition for a living in this country. It will definitely be useful for personal use, for the health of your family, and for a small community, maybe not for employment in the government service or in large health-care organizations compared with graduates reading for a well-structured 4-year program course in a university where a graduate nutritionist becomes very versatile in many other areas of health, medical and applied sciences for him to find employment in many other commercial industries even if he does not intend to practise nutrition in the civil or private services. We shall explain this later. But before that, let’s look at this online syllabus below:    
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15. Course Syllabus

1. Graduation title: Nutrition Consultant/Diet Consultant
2. Course Duration: 8 Months (Online)
3. Exam: 25 Theory Multiple Choice
4. Prerequisite: Suitable for anyone
5.  
6. 7 Big Nutrients
7. Module 1
8. Carbohydrates
9. Proteins
10. Fats
11. Vitamins
12. Minerals
13. Fibers
14. Water
15. Human Digestive Systems
16. Nutrition Myths and Facts
17. Module 2
18. Food Guide, Food Pyramid
19. Kids, Adult, Elders Nutrients Guide
20. Read Food Label, Nutritional Value
21. Supplements, Superfoods, Antioxidants
22. Enzymes, Antinutrients, Detoxification
23. Intestinal Disease
24. Vegetarian Diet
25. Acid-Base Foods, Probiotics/Prebiotics
26. Diet Therapy
27. Module 3
28. Design Menu, Case Study
29. Analysing Blood Reports (Invited Lecturer: Doctor)
30. Cancer And Diet Therapy, Liver Disease Management
31. Kidney Disease Management, Cardiovascular Disease Management,
32. Endocrine System (Hormones), Diabetes Management
33. Weight Management, Musculoskeletal System,
34. Calculate Personal and Food Calories
35. I think for an eight-month course, this is quite comprehensive, touching broadly on the basics of academic and applied aspects of nutrition for personal use, family and small community. It touches on the basic foundation needed to understand this subject within the short period of 8 months.  
36. However, nutrition taught in a university is a formal structured 3 -4-year course where many more subjects are taught in depth.
37.  A 4-year university course in nutrition includes not just theory or contents given in this online course but also practical in a lab where students learn how to analyze foods for their nutrient contents, such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and mineral contents.
38. A 4 -year nutrition course may include biomedical subjects such as physiology, biochemistry, food microbiology, food toxicology, basic medicine and food hygiene and much more we shall mention later.
39. Compare this with a medical course which is 5 years, which is just a year extra because a medical student needs to cover the diagnosis and treatment of many more other diseases than just nutritional deficiency diseases.  But they are all just clinical in nature and not beyond. A medical course is not as broad a spectrum as food science and nutrition, and hence a medical course is not very useful for other industries or other applications. It will have very limited opportunities for employment outside treating a sick person. But not for a food science or a nutrition graduate undergoing a 4-year bachelor’s degree program.
40. A student in nutrition, besides other sciences he needs also to study the clinical features of nutritional deficiency diseases, and how to identify and diagnose nutrition deficiency diseases. He does this far better than a medical doctor who is not well-trained in this area of medicine, or has little or no exposure to nutritional deficiency diseases. A nutritionist is an expert on nutritional diseases, but they lack training and exposure in other areas of medicine. Both medicine and nutrition have their limitations.  
41. A structured 4-year course in nutrition will include students learning parasitology and microbiology as well so that they can understand how parasitic diseases and infectious diseases can affect health and nutrition status. Some basic pharmacology may also be taught for the student to understand how drugs work, especially how some drugs may interfere with nutrient absorption and their metabolism, or nutrients interfere with drug chemistry, as well as food and drug interaction, their adverse reactions, besides understanding food allergy.
42. A student in nutrition also needs to understand food consumption surveys, how they are conducted as part of the assessment of nutrition and health status. He has to do field work together with other health and medical experts.
43.  In other words, he needs to have exposure in field work on nutrition and take part in health surveys, working as a member of the team alongside other health and medical experts.
44. In the course of their training, he may be posted to hospitals to look at cases of malnutrition, especially in severe malnutrition where clinical features of nutritional deficiency diseases show up.
45.  As part of the investigation, a student may also actually measure the food intake or even conduct blood and urine tests such as saturation or loading tests on the patient, besides measuring his food intake to assess the amount and the quality of the food.
46. As part of the syllabus, a nutrition student needs also to learn statistics on how research is conducted, how data are collected, analyzed and interpreted. He may need to apply statistics in epidemiology to study disease patterns in large populations especially for diet-related diseases such as cardiovascular, metabolic syndrome, neoplastic diseases and cancers, infectious diseases where immunity to diseases is compromised due to malnutrition. 
47. The word ‘malnutrition’ means ‘bad nutrition’ to include under or over nutrition, both of which are bad for health. He may also need to learn soil science, agriculture, food production, food balance sheet, food laws, food additives and their impact on health. He will also be exposed to genetic diseases and food intolerance such as inborn errors of metabolism leading to disorders of nutrition and metabolism such as fructose intolerance, galactosemia, maple sugar urine disease, phenylketonuria…lactose and milk intolerance etc., etc. 
48. To understand this, he may need to learn genetics and molecular medicine among a host of other medical and scientific subjects.
49. Nutrition is quite a hectic and demanding course requiring a student to learn anything from A – Z pertaining to medical and scientific subjects packed into one, besides sociology, anthropology, food taboos, food aversion, food beliefs related to cultures, religion and tradition.
50. He may also learn food science, food preservation, food quality, their safety and their quality control besides his ability in analytical chemistry, the use of various types of analytical instruments such as various types of spectrophotometers, chromatography, as well as wet chemistry used in food chemical analysis. He may also be an expert in food microbiology and in food-borne diseases. These give him a very wide scope for employment in any of these areas in the government and private sectors, and not just limited to the practice of nutrition if he does not wish to.
51. These are just part of the syllabus a nutrition student needs to learn in a more extensive course in a university. Of course, this depends on what each university or university college has to offer. Some may offer more, some less, and also the duration of the course. A 4-year program normally includes field work, lab and hospital attachment and other internships.
52. Besides course work, a student also engages in research work, and the ability to write and submit a dissertation in part fulfillment for a degree course, besides regular tutorials and forum discussions and presentations.
53. I can’t speak for all universities offering an undergraduate degree course or a postgraduate diploma course in nutrition. I am only familiar with what the University of London demands.
54.  England is where I did most of my higher education and postgraduate studies up to my doctorate, so I am familiar with the very high standards of education and demands of British universities.  
55. Again, this varies from university-to-university in other parts of the world. Not all universities are the same, but all have a minimum standard.    
56. But I think this 8-month online course in the above link looks good and reasonable enough for that duration. It looks comprehensive to me for personal and small-scale practice, but for government employment in the health services or for industrial applications, then that is where a 3 or 4-year graduate in nutrition will takes over. 
57. After all, the organizers of the course did not claim they will qualify their student to become a registered nutritionist, which is a protected title and a profession by law in this country under the Allied Health Profession Act (Act 774). The word “nutritionist” written before or after a person’s name is a protected and regulated professional title. The provider of this 8-month online course did not claim that.
58. They did not say the course will make the student become a nutritionist. They only say he or she can be a consultant in nutrition which is legally quite different from the title “nutritionist”. I don’t think there is anything wrong to call oneself a consultant in nutrition if he has undergone a reasonable course in this field like this 8-months online course. There is nothing illegal about this course. It is good enough, slightly more than basic nutrition.  To me it is quite reasonable to call oneself a consultant in nutrition after this online course. Eight months is quite reasonable, and we can see from their syllabus it is quite applicable too.
59. Thirty years ago, before the Allied Health Profession Act of Malaysia came into force, anyone can call himself a nutritionist after attending a 1 -2-week course on nutrition conducted by an unqualified person in an upgraded hostel organized by some health food companies. But no more now with the Allied Health Profession Act in force. Only those qualified whose degrees are registrable for practice can call themselves a nutritionist. It applies to other practitioners for other allied health and medical professions too, like dietetics, optometry, physiotherapy, clinical psychology. Even all other complementary systems of medicine like homeopathy, osteopathy, naturopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, etc, etc are now officially recognized under the Allied Health Profession Act provided they are properly trained and registered under their various councils and Ministry of Health. These systems of medicine are now exactly the same as with the practice of conventional allopathic medicine that needs to be registered with the MMC (Malaysian Medical Council). There is no escape unlike 30 years ago.
60. In my professional opinion, I think this course is reasonably good, practical and comprehensive enough even for applied nutrition for personal use, the welfare of his family and for a small community.
61. I would recommend this course to anyone to take it, whether or not he is a doctor, a scientist in other fields, or for a working individual.  I would certainly respect his training as a consultant in diet and nutrition.
62. The University of London at Queen Elizabeth College – QEC (the women’s wing of King’s College London) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine were the first university colleges in the world to offer a 4-year degree course and a one-year postgraduate diploma in nutrition for doctors and graduates in biomedical sciences.
63. The course was conducted under Professor John Yudkin MA, MD, FRCP, PhD, FRIC, FRIBiol a very well-known British nutritionist, physiologist, physician and chemist. He was the Chair of Nutrition at the University of London.
64. I studied nutrition under John Yudkin. So was another Malaysian doctor, the late Professor Dr Jason ST Teoh who later became the Head of Social and Preventive Medicine and later promoted as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. There was another Singaporean a year ahead of us who did the same postgraduate course at QEC. He later became a Professor at the University of Singapore.
65. Fashioned after the University of London a lot of universities around the world today also offer degree courses in nutrition and dietetics.
66.  Even here in Malaysia public and private universities like the National University of Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, International Medical University, Monash, Nottingham, Taylor’s universities, University College Sedaya International (UCSI), Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation, International University of Malaya & Wales, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management & Technology, (TAR UMT) all offering a 3 – 4-year degree programmes in nutrition. 
67. But it is very difficult to enter a university even with very good results in school. They have a quota only for the best students.
68. After my postgraduate from London University, I was offered a job with the World Health Organization (WHO) to conduct research in cancer related to nutrition in Lyon, France.  
69. But I declined the offer from WHO,  but went to work with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) instead as a nutrition / medical toxicologist. Later the Ministry of Health Malaysia offered me a research job with the Institute for Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur.  
70. In terms of employability, so far, I have not heard of any unemployed nutrition graduates. I think this is because of their very broad-based syllabus touching on all science and medical subjects including sociology, economics, food analysis, microbiology…etc, etc already mentioned.  This makes a graduate in nutrition very versatile where he can easily fit into the academia or in industry or in management to allow him to choose and switch jobs at any time.
71. Compare this with a medical graduate the only job he can do is to treat a sick person because a medical course is almost fixed just to diagnose and treat. A doctor cannot do any other job except to treat the sick because medical training is mainly clinical. A medical doctor would not be able to analyse even a blood sample as this is the job of a medical scientist working in the lab. But for a nutritionist his training is so wide, anything from biochemistry, cellular biology to food safety control and even down to animal nutrition and animal feeds they get employment in any of these areas if he wishes.
72. But a lot of people from the lay public think that nutrition is only about the study what food to eat and what to avoid for good health. They have completely no clue at how extensive and intensive the study of nutrition is.  
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