RFK to medical schools: It’s time to ramp up nutrition training for physicians

Healthy eating, nutritional training and diet must have a greater role in the training of America’s doctors, according to its health and education chiefs say.

The U.S. Departments of Education (DOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a joint call for medical schools and leading medical organizations “to immediately implement comprehensive nutrition education and training.” It is part of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative led by the administration of President Donald J. Trump.

The nation must prioritize prevention and reduce chronic disease through improved diet and public health measures, the departments’ joint statement said.

“Medical schools talk about nutrition but fail to teach it,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said in the announcement. “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.”

Expect plans to develop quickly because HHS and DOE set a Sept. 8 deadline for medical school leaders to submit “written plans detailing the scope, timeline, standards alignment, measurable milestones, and accountability measures of their nutrition education commitments.”

What’s the training now?

“Despite overwhelming evidence that nutrition is one of the most powerful tools for disease prevention, the vast majority of physicians graduate with little to no training in nutrition counseling,” the announcement said. There is a price to pay: $4.4 trillion a year spent on chronic disease and mental health care, with an estimated 1 million people dying a year from diet-related chronic diseases.

The announcement cited two studies and a “data snapshot” paper by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Those show that all the nation’s medical schools claim to cover nutrition as part of their curricula.

However, one study, “Survey of Nutrition Education Among Medical Students,” found students reported an average of 1.2 hours of formal nutrition education per year of medical school. Another study, “Addressing the Urgent Need for Clinical Nutrition Education in Post Graduate Medical Training: New Programs and Credentialing,” posited the lack of nutritional and dietary training for doctors is approaching an emergency level. Those authors also noted some medical schools have developed and integrated successful food health training that budding physicians can use for patient treatments.

‘Overwhelming’ research

In the federal agencies’ announcement, DOE Secretary Linda McMahon said the research is “overwhelming” that nutrition plays a vital part in preventing and treating chronic diseases.

“Medical schools across the country must act now to align their training with the latest research so that future physicians have the means to best help their patients stay healthy,” she said. “The U.S. Department of Education is proud to stand with HHS in working to lower chronic disease rates, especially in children.”

To close the knowledge gap, HHS and DOE called from nutrition education requirements embedded in six critical areas:

• Pre-medical standards
• Medical school curricula integration
• Medical licensing examination
• Residency requirements
• Board certification
• Continuing education

‘Let food be thy medicine’

Kennedy wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal and posted an online video explaining more about the “critical disconnect” between med school claims about their lessons and the reality of physicians who say they feel unprepared to counsel patients on food choices.

“Every future physician should master the language of prevention before they even touch a stethoscope,” Kennedy said in the video. In the future, doctors will prescribe not only medicines, but diets as well, he said.

Along with patient quality of life, the changes will save hundreds of billions of dollars on medical treatments, Kennedy said. He called the approach “both radical and common sense” to reconnect medicine with its roots.

“Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said, ‘Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.’ His advice remains true today, and we're bringing back food to its proper place in medicine,” Kennedy said in the video.

An organizational response

The AAMC acknowledged the importance of nutrition in preventing, managing and treating chronic conditions including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension and some cancers. Now, medical schools universally include nutrition education in their curricula, but “significant variation exists in how it is integrated,” and there is room for improvement.

“Few schools have implemented nutrition as a fully integrated longitudinal thread throughout their curricula, suggesting an important area for continued mapping and development,” the AAMC brief said. “Increased attention could be afforded to nutrition topics such as the environmental impact of food production and choices on health, food labels and the health impacts of ingredients, and community food resources.”

More to come

It was unclear what might happen if medical schools do not follow the proposal to integrate new nutritional training. In June, ABC News reported Kennedy suggested colleges without the dietary instruction would risk losing federal funding for programs.

Kennedy and McMahon’s announcement said the initiative precedes the upcoming release of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which the Trump Administration has identified as a central tool for reversing the chronic disease epidemic as part of its Make America Healthy Again agenda.

On social media

Kennedy posted his video on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. Reaction ranged from strongly supportive to critical. Some respondents noted doctors already are busy. There are nutritionists and dietitians who are experts in food counseling, but not all of their work is billable or reimbursable. Some respondents noted physicians are trained to prescribe pills, not foods, with the health care sector strongly influenced by Big Pharma.