Federal Officials Urge Medical Schools To Increase Their Nutrition Education Courses

In an effort led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., HHS and the Department of Education are urging schools to strengthen nutrition education across pre-med, medical school and residency programs.

Kennedy has previously said he was going to demand that medical schools teach nutrition or lose federal funding, but it was unclear from Wednesday's announcement if HHS or the Department of Education had the authority to do so.

Instead, HHS and the Department of Education asked schools to comply by providing details on their commitments within two weeks, by Sept. 8.

The announcement builds on Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" efforts to draw more attention to what he has called "root causes" of chronic diseases, particularly diet, lifestyle and exercise.

"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," Kennedy wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

"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. We know that when applied properly, nutrition counseling can prevent and even reverse chronic disease," he wrote.

Kennedy also announced the initiative with a video on X.

The proposed requirements would impact six areas, including pre-med courses, medical school courses, licensing examinations, residency, board certifications, and then throughout a physician’s career.

Some medical schools, including Cornell University and the University of North Carolina, have previously told ABC News that they believe they already offer sufficient nutrition education. The Association of American Medical Colleges says that each of the more than 170 medical schools in its membership reported "covering nutrition content in some form."

But there have also been efforts in the medical community to create across-the-board standards for improving nutrition training in medical school – a trend that began before Kennedy took office and that's backed by nutrition experts.

One study from 2015 showed that medical students spend, on average, only 19 hours on required nutrition education over their four years of schooling.

And last year, doctors and professors from over 30 universities published proposed recommendations for how schools could design their national curriculums, including 36 "nutritional competencies" for medical students to meet – many of which mirror what Kennedy and McMahon called for on Wednesday.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon speaks during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump, Aug. 26, 2025, at the White House in Washington.

"Despite the association between dietary patterns and chronic disease, there are no nationally required nutrition competencies in undergraduate medical education (UME), and such competencies are limited or completely absent from the requirements for most medical specialties in graduate medical education (GME)," they wrote at the time in an article published in JAMA Network Open.

The effort has received bipartisan support from Washington, including a 2022 House resolution calling for more nutrition courses in medical training to combat "the mounting personal and financial burden of diet-related disease."

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has also given attention to the issue. In 2023, the accreditation organization hosted a summit to discuss ways to incorporate more nutrition training in undergrad and graduate school programs.

Nate Wood, a doctor at Yale Medicine who focuses on obesity medicine and nutrition science, welcomed Kennedy and McMahon's effort.

"It’s certainly true that physicians are under-trained in nutrition and don’t feel confident addressing diet with their patients. More nutrition education at all levels is sorely needed: K-12, university, medical school, and residency and fellowship training," he said.

But Wood cautioned that physicians alone can't fill the void in the medical system – especially when they're focused on other aspects of care.

"Many patients lack access to a registered dietitian, and physicians aren’t trained to work in concert with these nutrition experts. Interprofessional collaboration with dietitians needs to be a focus of whatever nutrition education we implement for our nation’s future physicians to ensure that patients receive team-based care in an evidence-based manner," Wood said.