My review is based on the Winter 2018-19 quarter.

Even if you are extremely interested in the "physiology of nutrition," THINK AGAIN BEFORE TAKING THIS CLASS. I enrolled in this course because of my passion for the topic. I thought I would receive a life-changing UCLA education on it, but I've never been more mistaken.

We barely saw our professor because there was a guest lecturer almost every week, and they usually sped through their powerpoints because of the insane amount of material covered. Overall, lectures were very scattered and unorganized, with no apparent order and flow. On top of that, powerpoints were never uploaded to ccle, and the class was not bruincasted. I ended up only going to lecture to catch the mandatory sign-in sheet. RIP..

Grade breakdown:
- 30 points, 30 question multiple choice midterm (I got 26/30)
- 20 points, 2 page, double-spaced body composition assessment (I got 19.75/20)
- 50 points, 50 question multiple choice CUMULATIVE final (I got 42/50)
- 100 points total (I got 87.75/100)

I ended up getting an A-, so that means that our class had at least a 2.25% grade bump up.

So... the take-away message is this: If you learn best through lectures like I do, this is not the class for you. This ain't it chief. Save yourself. HOWEVER, if you don't mind crappy lectures, along with reading and memorizing every detail from a 300-page, poorly written course reader on your own, feel free to give it a shot. And good luck.

In my opinion, this class needs an extreme makeover.

Truly the WORST class that you can ever take. I WISH I listened to the other reviews. Dr. Lu doesn't teach herself and all of the lecturers are unhelpful for studying for the tests.

You have to memorize/know everything in the poorly written course reader. Even then, most of the questions on the midterm weren't really taken from the course reader or even the ppt lectures.

The final since the covid situation was turned into a take-home final exam with short-answer questions that were SO particular. Even if you wrote long through answers, if you didn't meet the requirements that the professor wanted, you lost points very easily. The questions themselves were so open-ended that I didn't know you had to include certain facts to get full points. THE WORST class do NOT take it!!

I wanted to take this class to learn more about nutrition but just read books instead of taking this class because it is a waste of time. I didn't learn anything useful at all.

Everything in the class is in the course reader. The course reader isn't even written that well; there are a ton of typos in it. There's not much that goes into your grade, just your midterm, paper, and final. I ended the course with an 88% and got an A minus so I think the class was curved upward. They passed around a sign-in sheet to make sure you go to lecture but you could probably get a friend to sign for you if you don't want to go. Lecture is kind of pointless unless you're really into the topic. This class will be easier for you if you've taken PhySci classes before and/or are a STEM major. A lot of people in this class were biochemistry majors taking this for upper division credit; I was one of these people. At first this class was interesting to me but I grew to be really annoyed of the class, both of the material and the professors. Dr. Lu just manages the class in terms of logistics but she doesn't actually teach the material herself. She gets guest speakers to teach for her. Overall this class was pretty low maintenance but I don't feel like I got much out of this class. Take this if you're looking for a relatively easy upper div (in terms of work load, getting an A requires a little bit of effort actually). Don't take this class if you're looking to learn things that will help you once you start working in the real world.

Despite seeing the unfavorable grade distribution of this class in recent quarters I decided to enroll because I enjoy the subject matter. In my opinion this class is easy simply because it doesn't require any strenuous work with the exception of reading the course reader.

The professor, Qing-yi Lu may lecture once the entire quarter as the entirety of the class is hosted by guest lecturers from the Center of Nutrition at UCLA and Dr. David Heber. I enjoyed many of the lectures, however, the material is supplemental to the course and reinforces concepts in the course reader.

To be successful in this class I would recommend reading a couple chapters from the course reader every week (there are sixteen chapters for ten weeks of class) and highlight the niche information like diseases for vitamin deficiencies and what color of food links to what phytonutrient, as that is regularly tested on. As a biochemistry major there is a lot of material in the course reader that covers advanced knowledge of pathways and regulation, all of which is bs, unnecessary, and won't be tested so you can skip over all of that.

There are two tests that your grade is mostly composed of, a midterm and a final. The questions given in the test are relatively simple as Doctor Heber emphasizes that there will be two obviously wrong answers which gives you a 50/50 chance to get the right answer. The material that is tested is a blend of niche information (as aforementioned) and general overarching concepts (i.e. an obese person has a higher risk of x/y/z....).

What makes this class seem so difficult is the grade scale as there is supposedly no curve. There is a rumor that you can only miss 6 questions to get an A, however I missed a total of 9 questions and was able to get an A in the class. There was a curve implemented as the average for the midterm was 80% (25/30) and 78% on the final (39/50). Dr. Heber emphasized the class would be half A's and half B's with some C's, but based on recent grade distributions I don't know how valid that is.

The only assignment of the course is a Body Assessment Assignment worth 200 points, however, most people can complete the assignment in a day (but of course do yours earlier!). The average grade on the assignment was 195/200 so don't sweat it.

TL:DR I would recommend the class as an easy upper division GE. To be successful read the course reader regularly.

Very bad teaching and testing, you have to memorize their unclear book everything. I recorded the lectures took pictures of slides and sometimes video-record the lecture. The worst class to take. people that say its good probably have some other resources! Just stop ruining your GPA by not taking this class. They say on the first day if you come to the class and listen to the lecture you will do good but their Final was horrible. Midterm is ok. Its only one midterm worth 30 points all multiple choice. Final is all multiple choice as well. You can lose only 6 questions in total both midterm and the final together ONLY 6 wrong to get an A, and this is the case IF you get the full points for a term paper that they have you to write.