This class was entirely online and asynchronous for this quarter. The class was comprised of lecture quizzes, lab quizzes, attendance quizzes, labs, lifestyle project, midterm and final (optional). To be concise, lecture is straight up out of the course reader. Professor Esdin goes over the main takeaways from the course reader for an hour. I personally liked the idea of the labs, but gauging your own health using them was somewhat inaccessible for me. We also were not required to do conduct test trials. The multiple choice questions in this class were really, really easy but sometimes vague and confusing. It was sometimes difficult to identify what exactly it was asking. My TA took about an hour and a half for each lab/section meeting. Taking the final was optional because Professor Esdin granted everyone an A due to the effect of BLM. Academics aside, I wouldn't recommend this class to people struggling with EDs because looking at your iProfile may be triggering.

I love Professor Esdin. He is very smart and coherent and made learning super fun. Overall, it's a very easy class, but you learn a lot of practical knowledge. Only hard parts of getting an A is making sure that you study for the midterm and the final (midterm is slightly harder), but as long as you get a B on those, I think you can end up getting an A if you get 100 on all the little quizzes and participation, which is relatively easy.

Do not take this class if you have/have had an eating disorder! One of the major elements of the class is a final project in which you have to record everything you eat in a week and calculate its nutritional value, which made friends who have suffered in the past fall into old habits.

I liked the content of the class a lot and a many things taught in this course was material many people haven't been exposed to. Professor Esdin is very clear with lecture content and is super engaging! BUT, as you may know, this is part of the LS7 series; there's always something that's gotta be wrong with the class. In this case, it was the exams. I prayed a few days before midterms and the final that the wording was going to be clear, but nope. The wording on the midterms were extremely ambiguous and needlessly tedious to understand, as a result, people often wasted time trying to even comprehend the horrific questions. The final was not terrible however. My recommendation is to read exam problems VERY carefully since supposedly they "don't try to trick you" but really they do. Also, go over in class diagrams and discussion concepts, these two are very important since they will show up on exams. Good luck taking this class!

People be writing some mean reviews.

I don't care what people say, it's not a hard A. It's about 90% effort based. Grade breakdown is as follows:

631 total points. All points are weighted the same.
55 points for lab/lecture attendance. You just need to show up for 9% of your grade. Even better, you can find friends to sign you in (maybe do a rotation between a few people, and you show up for maybe 10 lectures the entire quarter).
100 points for the workbook. It's really not a lot of work, maybe 15 minutes per week, and you get full credit for full effort (as long as you answer most questions decent enough).
100 points for your project. Takes about 6 hours to hammer out, and as long as you follow the guideline you'll get full points.
6 points for filling out myUCLA professor/TA eval.
40 points for "lecture" quizzes. 2 quizzes 20 points each. Supposedly based on lecture material but it is actually straight from the course reader, all super easy. You don't even have to you read and you can look through the course reader to find the answers.
30 points for discussion quizzes that probably aren't even graded. Another free 30 points. Probably less effort point for point compared to filling out the eval.
150 points for midterm, 150 points for final. Not cumulative. About 45 questions in 50 minutes, all multiple choice. If you read one or two chapters at a time to stay caught up, and then read it again before each exam, you should be totally fine. I didn't quite pay attention in lecture, I had maybe a page front and back of notes in the last 6 weeks; reading the course reader sufficed. Most people walked out of the exams within 20 minutes (this includes double checking work). There's some people saying you have to memorize every single thing on the course reader. Not completely off the mark since the exam questions are pretty specific. Either you know it or you don't. But let's consider your situation though. You're aiming for an A. Assuming you've already gotten 331 free points (TA literally says that you should get full points on everything else as long as you do it, and he's absolutely telling the truth), you need to average 80% on each exam. Some statistics for the midterm: the mean was 79% and median was 81%. For the final: mean was 78%, median was 83%. Pretty much the average student gets an A in the class. And let's be real, the average student in a 400 person lecture probably doesn't go to class or read the course reader.

Grading aside, this class is actually pretty interesting and relevant to most people. There's tons of people who go to De Neve and pig out, and even more who go to BPlate thinking they eat healthy and way overinduldge on peanut butter and spritzers. The class is all about raising awareness about lifestyle diseases and providing a solid knowledge base so you can make informed choices in your life. It's probably more relevant than Ethno or Scand.

If you're looking for an A, this class is for you. The difficulty of this class is probably a 2/10. Workload is probably 15 mins a week, plus a single 5-10 hour project depending how slow you work. Perhaps the hardest part of the class is signing in every lecture at 9AM for participation.

**SELLING COURSE STUDY GUIDE FOR $30**
**EMAIL - ************* - IF INTERESTED**

Esdin is the GOAT. He wakes up at 4AM and gets his day started right. He's inspired me to live a healthier life.

1. Make friends in lecture & ask them to sign you in. Attending lecture is not necessary for doing well.

2. The midterm and final are non-cumulative are all multiple choice. They cover material in the course reader so reading that will be essential.

3. Start your project early. It's not that hard to get a free 100 points.

This class was an easy A but not fun at all. Like most people I read the "this class will make you get your life together" review on this site and thought the class would be worth a shot, it was not. The class is barebones health education material stripped straight out of the course reader. I'm pretty sure you could distill all of the information we learned into a 10 minute ASAP Science video.

Lecture is literally just Professor Esdin writing on blank powerpoint slides for an hour. The stuff he writes is literally copied almost word for word from the course reader, but attendance is still mandatory so you're forced to sit through every lecture. He also has a weird "no photographing my slides" rule for some reason. The material was applicable to life and helpful and all, but it really could have been much more than it was.

The labs were the best part of the class because they actually helped you gauge your own health. They are held only once every other week and take about 30 minutes a piece despite being labelled as 2 hour sections. They are fun in that you gain some introspection to your own health status, but the same effect could be achieved by weighing yourself and wearing a fitbit.

RANT: You will be forced to buy or share an iProfile subscription. iProfile is a literal scam. The UI looks like it was designed right when the internet came out. It's a health tracking app that supposedly helps you track your calories and exercise, but it's so bad that any information it gives you is probably wrong. It was obviously designed by white people (I am white, so I can say this) because they don't have ANY ethnic food listed in their "50,000 food items to choose from." If they have anything that wasn't developed in Western Europe then it's the shitty microwavable brand version. Literally they didn't have (to name a few):
- pho
- bean burritos
- quesadillas
- SUSHI!!! (wtf lol how do you not even have sushi)
- Ramen
- any indian food at all (they had curry powder mix as their only curry option)

Don't even get me started on the activity tracker. I hated this dumb app.
Rant over.

The multiple choice questions in this class were really, really easy but sometimes vague and confusing (discarded SAT question -style). It was either hard to tell what the question was asking or there were two very similar answers.

Take this class if you're just shilling for a good GPA, avoid this class and watch some YouTube health science videos if you don't want to waste a GE.

Professor Esdin is very passionate about this class and cares about his students understanding the material and taking this knowledge with them after the quarter ends. I had this course online and definitely had an easier experience than usual due to the world circumstances, but I really did enjoy listening to this professor and learning the content in this course. Definitely an easier GE course at UCLA, but also a valuable one. Complete the (decently light in my experience) course work on time, and review notes before quizzes and tests and you'll have no trouble getting a good grade.

I AM SELLING MY 25-pages TYPED UP NOTES FOR 25$. They are super complete because I incorporated my notes from the textbook into my lecture notes — you can contact me at ************* if interested!! Selling the course reader, fully highlighted, for 40$ (Price can be discussed).

Dr. Esdin is a very engaging and dedicated professor. He explains material well and makes you understand everything quite easily. I took this during COVID so the lectures were asynchronous. The class overall is pretty easy if you do the work and the reading.

However, the only down side for a lot of people who took this fall quarter was that his questions quizzes and exams were ambiguously written, which meant that practically all of us lost points on questions because of his wording...(even though we knew the material perfectly). Midterm is harder than final (I got 100% on the final). No extra credit offered. Class breakdown:

- 5 lecture quizzes (100 pts)
- 5 lab quizzes (75 pts)
- Attendance in lab (25 pts)
- Attendance in lecture (84 pts) — there are 3 points quizzes after each lecture
- Project (100 pts)
- Midterm (50 pts)
- Final (50 pts)
- Prof evaluations (6 pts)

Would definitely recommend. Also don’t be discouraged if you lose points at the beginning; I thought I would barely get an A- but turns out the quizzes get easier so I ended up with a 95% (A is 93%+).

TA Ingrid is amazing try to take her!!

I am SELLING my 80-pages TYPED UP NOTES for only $20! They have all of the content taught in classes instead of the $100+ coursereader you would probably purchase. My notes are super complete and neat and use all of the content from the textbook and lectures. You can contact me at ************* if you are interested! Price can be negotiated and you will receive the notes right away! I got an A overall (96%) and a full mark on the final too.

I am also selling the coursereader, completely in new condition and untouched for much cheaper, email me if interested!