Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is giving the nation's medical schools two weeks to submit plans for embedding nutrition education in their curricula.
Medical schools are being given until Sept. 10 to provide the plans "detailing the scope, timeline, standards alignment, measurable milestones, and accountability measures of their nutrition education commitments,” according to a press release from Department of Health and Human Services and the Education Department.
“Medical schools talk about nutrition but fail to teach it,” Kennedy said in the release. “We demand immediate, measurable reforms to embed nutrition education across every stage of medical training, hold institutions accountable for progress, and equip every future physician with the tools to prevent disease — not just treat it.”
The effort aligns with the administration’s stated objectives to determine the root causes of chronic diseases and find ways to prevent them. The Make America Healthy Again Commission released a report in May and a draft strategy was leaked this month.
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The news release took note of the “upcoming" release of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, “which the Trump administration has identified as a central tool for reversing the chronic disease epidemic as part of its [MAHA] agenda.”
The nutrition education requirements are supposed to cover all of these areas:
- Pre-medical standards.
- Medical school curricula integration.
- Medical licensing examination.
- Residency requirements.
- Board certification.
- Continuing education.
Association of American Medical Colleges data “shows that all U.S. medical schools claim to cover nutrition, [but] other studies show the majority of medical students report receiving fewer than two hours of instruction,” the release says. “Research published in 2024 documents that 75% of U.S. medical schools have no required clinical nutrition classes, and only 14% of residency programs have a required nutrition curriculum.
“HHS is calling for increased nutrition education thresholds across the medical education continuum,” the release continues. “The nation’s medical schools must fundamentally address this critical gap in health care training and ensure that future and current doctors possess the essential knowledge to provide evidence-based nutritional guidance to their patients.”
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published Wednesday, Kennedy said, "Future physicians must graduate prepared to prevent disease — by assessing risk, guiding lifestyle change, providing nutritional counseling, educating patients and addressing environmental factors, with nutrition education as the most proven and powerful tool."
"With the support of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, I am calling on medical schools, residency programs, licensing boards, and assessment and accrediting bodies to overhaul their standards. They must embed rigorous, measurable nutrition education at every stage of medical training."
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