While we have shared an initial introduction to what a virtual exchange is from the IUPUI side, it’s important to remember that this is also being driven and experienced by our international partners. Here is Dr. Anthony Watson, Lecturer in the School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sports Sciences at Newcastle University, sharing his school’s reasoning for participating in our exchange.
Food is an essential part of everyone’s life. On the most primitive level we need food and good nutrition to survive and (hopefully) thrive. However, food also plays a key role in our identities and our traditions. It is used as a tool for socializing and for comfort and our food choices are driven by a multitude of factors such as upbringing, faith, culture, and the geographical locations which we live.
As we educate nutrition and dietetics students on the importance of good nutrition for growth, maintenance, and the prevention of ill health and disease, we also need them to understand that many factors drive our food choices and food patterns. They need to understand that “one size does not fit all” and we cannot make recommendations with achievable goals to improve health or manage conditions if we do not take food choice into consideration.
Throughout their degrees, nutrition and dietetics students at Newcastle University will have the opportunity to interact with people from different religions, cultures and geographical locations. This is facilitated through Q and A sessions, lectures and initially through a virtual international exchange.
International Exchange
To help our students understand how our geographical location impacts our food choice, we have integrated a virtual exchange with Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) into one of our key first year modules – Introduction to human nutrition (NUT1002). This module is taken by nutrition and dietetics students and aims to provide an overview of nutrition and health and give students an understanding of how social and cultural factors are related to nutrition.
The exchange is between Newcastle University students and their peers of a similar age in the USA. Students are set various tasks throughout the 8-week exchange where they interact through video conferencing and discussion boards to discuss what foods they eat and why they eat them. The exchange finishes with a 5-minute presentation about the similarities and differences between their diet in relation to their peers in America. The presentation makes the students reflect on the reasons for these differences.
The overall purpose of the exchange is to give students a foundation understanding of why we eat what we do. This understanding is then used as a scaffold to teach more complex aspects of food choice and their impacts on how health professionals consider individual differences when making dietary recommendations.
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