If someone tells you how to be healthy or what you should or shouldn’t eat, do you believe them? Why or why not? How do dietary “experts” establish their expertise? What makes some people/arguments more convincing than others? Is any dietary advice ever truly “right”? What happens during the process of translating nutrition and diet research into everyday action? How have ideas about healthy diets and healthy bodies changed over time? This course uses the long history of diet and health to investigate the relationship between popular understandings of health and the idea of expertise.
Even if you have never thought about the history of medicine or diet or health, or have never taken a history course, or even a humanities course, YOU ARE WELCOME HERE! I assume you have no prior knowledge or skills necessary for class, so we build from the ground up.
I will do everything I can do help you learn as much as you’re motivated to learn, and to help you get whatever grade you’re aiming for. As much as possible I’ve tried to make the course about everyone thinking together rather than just you learning “facts” that you can regurgitate later. If you feel the course structure isn’t facilitating your own success, please let me know what would!
The course syllabus is this page and the schedule page. These two pages have everything you need to know about the course. It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to know what’s on the syllabus and follow directions.
All assignments will be submitted and graded via Canvas.
All course videos are available on YouTube, and links to videos will be posted on the syllabus. I don’t send out notifications about videos, but if you want them you can subscribe to the course YouTube Channel.
There are NO REQUIRED BOOKS OR READERS for the course; everything is accessible online. LITERALLY EVERYTHING you need for the course is either already available online (and linked to on the syllabus), or is a PDF in our Zotero library as described below. You never need to find anything on your own!
We use a tool called Zotero to organize and provide access to all readings for the course. To get connected, carefully follow the getting started guide. If it doesn’t work for you, follow the directions more carefully. They work.
diet-health-expertise-unm (in case you try to look it up on zotero.org, but you shouldn’t need to.)Most weeks (and some sub-week units) have a short overview video that highlight a few “big points” that I hope you’ll keep in mind as you make your way through the readings. These are important to mention in your reading reflections.
Some days (or set of days) have their own short “big points” video to call attention to big picture ideas that might get lost in the details of the readings. These are important to mention in your reading reflections.
Most days you’ll have something to read or watch, and you’ll need to show me you did that via some type of quiz or other kind of short essay assignment.
Reading reflections are very short essays that encourage you to reflect on the readings in a particular way. They usually have a constellation of questions to reflect on and address. Sometimes they are entirely freeform, and you can write whatever you want. There are a couple different flavors of reflections just to mix things up a bit, but the spirit behind the assignment is always the same. Show me you’re trying to understand the reading and how it fits in the course. There is never a right answer, but some answers are better informed that others. I’m looking for legit effort.
Quizzes are generally straightforward. I try to make the quizzes easy if you’ve done the work and impossible if you’re just bluffing your way through them. My hope is that if you just try to guess the answer, you’ll get about 50%, but at least 90% otherwise. There are almost always short answer questions on quizzes that allow you to “show what you know” for extra points. There is often extra credit on the quizzes, too.
The readings can be dense and sometimes it’s hard to discern the forest for the trees. (Of course that’s one of the skills you’re developing in this course!) And sometimes they can just be hard to understand. So, in trying to evaluate your engagement with them, I’m always looking for familiarity over mastery. Knowing what’s in the readings and what they are trying to do, is FAR more important than feeling like you completely get it. So, I try to make reflection prompts and quizzes focus on gauging your familiarity with what’s going on in general.
All assignments are DUE BY MIDNIGHT on the day they are listed on the syllabus (unless otherwise stated). Honestly, turning them in an hour late (if you’re a night owl) doesn’t matter.
You have TWO DAYS after the due date to turn in the assignment, although there is a small late penalty each day. I don’t want to sound too strict, but I’ve found that having no deadlines encourages well-meaning students (who want to turn in their best work) to get into a deep hole of missing work, and the course simply moves too fast to recover.
The little equations after the assignment type indicates number of assignments x points for each = total points. Total points really don’t matter since grades are based on a simple percentage, but this shows the relative weight of each kind of assignment.
Depending on how the course unfolds, the final number of points will change slightly. But the percent grading scale will remain the same (unless it gets easier to get a higher grade).
Note that the whole scale is a little “easier” than the “standard” grading scale. This is because some quiz questions might be too vague or unclear or whatever, or a reading reflection gets a bit misunderstood or doesn’t convey what you intend. So rather than waste time nitpicking points here and there (which some of you would do), I just give them all to everyone right away.
| Percent | Grade |
|---|---|
| 95+ | A+ |
| 90-94 | A |
| 88-89 | A- |
| 85-87 | B+ |
| 82-84 | B |
| 80-81 | B- |
| 77-79 | C+ |
| 73-76 | C |
| 66-72 | C- |
| 61-65 | D+ |
| 56-60 | D |
| 55- | F |
You should be familiar with UNM’s Policy on Academic Dishonesty and the Student Code of Conduct which outline academic misconduct defined as plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, or facilitating any such act.
UNM is committed to providing courses that are inclusive and accessible for all participants. As your instructor, it is my objective to facilitate an accessible education experience, in which students have full access and opportunity. If you are experiencing technical or academic barriers, or concerns related to mental or physical health, please consult with me. You are also encouraged to contact Accessibility Resource Center at arcsrvs@unm.edu or by phone 277-3506..
All students are welcome in this class regardless of citizenship, residency, or immigration status. I will respect your privacy if you choose to disclose your status. UNM as an institution has made a core commitment to the success of all our students, including members of our undocumented community.