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HHS, Department of Education Call for Integration of Nutrition Education in Medical Schools

By Tina Brown HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com

via HealthDay

THURSDAY, Aug. 28, 2025 -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education announced an initiative Wednesday urging medical schools to integrate nutrition education and training.

"We train physicians to wield the latest surgical tools, but not to guide patients on how to stay out of the operating room in the first place," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wrote in a commentary announcing the initiative in the Wall Street Journal. "We know that when applied properly, nutrition counseling can prevent and even reverse chronic disease."

Medical education organizations have until Sept. 10 to submit plans detailing "the scope, timeline, standards alignment, measurable milestones, and accountability measures of their own nutrition education commitments," according to an HHS press release.

Kennedy called for medical education organizations to "embed rigorous, measurable nutrition education at every stage of medical training," including premedical standards, medical school curricula integration, medical licensing examination, residency requirements, board certification, and continuing education.

"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," Kennedy wrote.

Survey data published this month from the American Association of Medical Colleges showed that all 149 participating medical degree-granting schools reported covering nutrition content in their required curricula. Less than half of the participating schools, however, reported including nutrition in multiple sources or rotations and just 17 percent reported that nutrition information was fully integrated across all years or phases of their curriculum.

There have been efforts in the past to increase nutrition education in medical training. Last year, physicians and professors, including a representative from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, published a consensus statement in JAMA Network Open recommending 36 nutrition competencies to be included for licensing and board certification exams.

The authors cited a U.S. House of Representatives bipartisan resolution passed in 2022 calling for "meaningful" nutrition education for medical trainees, "prompted by increasing health care spending attributed to the growing prevalence of nutrition-related diseases."

"In an imagined future, physicians will be appropriately trained in nutrition and will be able to translate nutrition science into practical, evidence-based, accessible, and culturally sensitive advice about food for patients, families, and communities," the authors wrote in the consensus statement.

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Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted August 2025

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