by Madison Fossa, The College Fix:
Key Takeaways
- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pushing for mandatory nutrition education in medical schools, emphasizing its importance in preventing chronic diseases.
- Kennedy argues that future physicians must learn to prescribe diets alongside medications to combat diet-related illnesses, which claim over a million American lives annually.
- Current data shows many medical schools provide minimal nutrition instruction, with a significant lack of required clinical nutrition courses.
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Arguing that preventable and chronic diseases can be ratcheted back through diet, nutritional health and lifestyle choices, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has directed medical programs to embed nutrition education into curricula and testing.
“Every future physician should master the language of prevention before they even touch a stethoscope,” he said in announcing the initiative recently. “In the future, doctors won’t just prescribe drugs, they’ll be able to prescribe diets as well.”
The directive comes as the Department of Health and Human Services works to develop updated U.S. dietary guidelines, expected to be released by December.
The Health Department, along with the Department of Education, has tasked all medical programs across the nation with adding nutrition education into curricula, medical licensing exams, residency requirements, and board certification, according to a news release.
Kennedy, in a video announcing the development, said poor nutrition takes over one million American lives per year through “diet-related illnesses.”
He wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that nothing is being done to address this.
“Accrediting bodies and medical organizations look the other way, declining to set clear requirements. 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,” Kennedy wrote.
A news release announcing the new requirements stated that while “recent Association of American Medical Colleges data shows that all U.S. medical schools claim to cover nutrition, other studies show the majority of medical students report receiving fewer than two hours of instruction.”
“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.”
