BSc (Hons) Health and Exercise Science with Professional Placement

How we can get people more active and making healthy choices? Prepare yourself for a range of careers, promoting health at an individual or population level.

This course combines science, social science and public health. Through learning about how the human body works, you will understand the impact that physical activity, diet and other lifestyle choices have on health and wellbeing.

This degree has three core themes running throughout the course:

• Exercise Science provides a fundamental, interdisciplinary understanding of human function
• Behavioural Medicine explores how we can use the principles of exercise science to promote health, or treat and prevent disease
• Public Health investigates the determinants of population health, focusing particularly on the role of physical activity and lifestyle in the health of a population

Through these core themes, you will apply your knowledge to health and exercise settings. This will help you to understand their relevance in current practice.

Some of the topics you will cover include:

• epidemiology
• exercise prescription
• health technologies
• nutrition
• social health inequalities
• sports medicine
• research methods

In Year 1, you’ll build on your knowledge of human physiology, biomechanics and psychology, and develop your understanding of the role of physical activity on public health. You’ll develop skills in research design and statistics.

In Year 2, you'll gain more in-depth understanding of exercise, health and nutrition at different stages of life, for various clinical groups, and at the individual, community and population level. You’ll explore how we communicate these health messages to different audiences.

In your final year, you’ll carry out a year-long research project and study advanced units in areas such as nutrition, health technologies, sociology and exercise prescription.

This course will prepare you for a range of careers including public health, rehabilitation, physician’s assistant, community sports, health promotion, health policy and exercise science.