Department Overview

Welcome to the extraordinary Department of Nutrition established January 2020 from the Department of Nutrition and Food Science — built upon a rich heritage of Aggie leadership in nutrition, and dedicated to expanding the embrace of the Aggie family worldwide. In creating the Department, the state of Texas and Texas A&M University recognized the importance of food choices in living a healthy life. Families, schools, communities and businesses all benefit when people make nutritious choices as part of a healthy lifestyle. It is important that people have the knowledge to make the right food choices when eating at home and away from home. It is the mission of the Department of Nutrition to:

1. find out how foods (and nutrients) work in our bodies to promote health, and
2. teach people to choose foods (and lifestyles) to help them be healthy.

Nutrition is involved in almost all of the processes of human life. The field ranges from discovering the role of citrus limonoids on cell signalling and the development of breast cancer to the effect of amino acids like arginine on protein metabolism and muscle mass to the effect of nutrition education programs on glycosylated hemoglobin levels of individuals with diabetes. Indeed, nutrition is central to growing concerns of obesity and severe chronic health diseases.

In short, the future health and well-being of the world is incumbent on the nutrition discipline and its role in maintaining health and preventing and treating diseases.

Mission

Through the advancement of the discipline of nutrition, the Department of Nutrition will:

• Serve as a global leader in undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate training that prepares trainees for leadership roles in academia, clinics, industry, government, public health, and the nonprofit sector with the goal of improving evidence-based decision making around nutrition at all levels from research to application and policy.
• Discover new knowledge, technologies, and intervention strategies spanning basic to applied research that provides the foundation for precision nutrition that can be applied regionally, nationally, and internationally with the goal of improving human health and well-being through disease prevention and management.
• Engage society in the adoption and maintenance of dietary behaviors to mitigate health disparities and to improve the quality of life across the life span for individuals, communities, and populations, especially in Texas that has a majority-minority population and unique food systems.
• Participate in national and international policy initiatives aimed at reducing food insecurity and increasing value foods to bring recognition to Texas A&M while having a positive impact on human health beyond the borders of Texas.

Vision

The Department of Nutrition (NUTR) aspires to become a top-ranked life and behavioral sciences department that advances the science, education, and application of evidence-based nutrition through excellence in education, discovery, scholarship, as well as extension-related service (translational), outreach and engagement to promote optimal health for Texans and the world.