\n<\/p>\n
At the Trump administration\u2019s urging, 53 medical schools are expanding their nutrition education curriculum. <\/p>\n
Starting next fall, those medical schools\u2014including programs at Tufts University, the University of Florida and George Washington University\u2014will require students to complete at least 40 hours of nutrition education. While all of the nearly 200 medical schools in the United States already require some form of nutrition education, it averages just 1.2 hours per year. <\/p>\n
\u201cChronic disease is bankrupting our health system, and poor nutrition sits at the center of that crisis,\u201d Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said Thursday at an event in Washington, D.C., announcing the pledges. \u201cToday medical schools are committing to change how America trains its doctors\u2014by putting nutrition back where it belongs: at the heart of patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additionally, HHS is launching a $5\u00a0million nutrition education challenge led by the National Institutes of Health, according to a department news release. The funding will help medical schools and nursing, residency, nutrition science and dietitian programs develop coursework, clinical training opportunities and research initiatives focused on sound nutrition science. And starting this year, U.S. Public Health Service officers will be required to complete nutrition-focused continuing education hours. <\/p>\n
Kennedy and Education Secretary Linda McMahon emphasized at the event that the medical schools\u2019 pledges were voluntary. But the administration has shown a willingness to use federal funding that universities and medical schools rely on as leverage to compel policy changes. In the last year, Kennedy has mentioned that he could cut off federal funding to those who don\u2019t fall in line with his vision for nutrition education, but that threat doesn\u2019t appear to have been formalized.<\/p>\n
These expanded nutrition education requirements are part of Kennedy\u2019s plan to advance his larger \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d agenda, which aims to address and prevent chronic illness through diet and lifestyle choices. \u201cThis is how we implement the MAHA agenda,\u201d Kennedy said Thursday. \u201cThis is how we make America healthy again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the medical community has pushed back against some of Kennedy\u2019s other MAHA initiatives\u2014including limiting vaccine research and publicizing false or misleading claims about fluoride, raw milk and food dyes\u2014the American Medical Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine praised the government\u2019s emphasis on nutrition education. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor too long, nutrition has been treated as an elective in medical education,\u201d AMA president Bobby Mukkamala said at the event. \u201cConsidering how important what we eat is for our health, it should be a basic foundational training, because it impacts every one of our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while some physicians have long called for expanded nutrition education, the Trump administration\u2019s intervention over the past year finally got results. <\/p>\n
In June, Kennedy mentioned in passing that he was considering withholding federal funding for medical schools that don\u2019t offer nutrition education. But that threat wasn\u2019t included in the official directive he issued with McMahon in August, which gave premed programs, medical schools, residencies, medical licensing exams, board certifications and continuing education organizations two weeks to submit plans for integrating comprehensive nutrition education and training into their curriculum. <\/p>\n
But according to The New York Times<\/em>, Kennedy shifted to a softer approach after medical schools pushed back. In a January letter to university leaders, Kennedy said HHS \u201cwelcomes your participation to implement\u201d at least 40 hours of nutrition education for medical students, promising to publicly celebrate any school that exhibited such \u201cleadership.\u201d <\/p>\n The letter also included a list of 71 topics for medical schools to consider while developing their curricula, according to the Times<\/em>. While some of those suggestions\u2014such as learning about nutrient deficiencies and food allergies\u2014align with the recommendations of medical experts, others, such as a focus on dietary supplements and wearable devices, don\u2019t. <\/p>\n But both Kennedy and McMahon emphasized that medical schools will have full control over development of their nutrition education curriculum. <\/p>\n \u201cTo be clear, today\u2019s announcement is not the Trump administration dictating medical curriculum,\u201d Kennedy said at the announcement. \u201cToday represents a mutual recognition that HHS and leaders in American medicine can come together to advance shared goals and interests.\u201d <\/p>\n But some nutrition experts are skeptical. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t trust the Trump administration when they say they aren\u2019t going to try to influence what will be taught,\u201d David Seres, retired director of medical nutrition and professor of medicine in the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center, told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. <\/p>\n \u201cEven if they really mean it that they\u2019re not going to force a certain curriculum, this administration has acted in ways that make it unnecessary for them to overtly force their curriculum,\u201d he added. \u201cPeople are fearful of the kinds of [retribution]\u2014such as withholding funding\u2014the administration has already demonstrated they\u2019re willing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Since assuming control of the White House last year, the Trump administration has withheld billions in federal funding from colleges and universities\u2014including medical schools and affiliated hospital systems\u2014accused of violating laws and executive orders, such as those prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and gender-affirming care. <\/p>\n But the pressure campaign hasn\u2019t stopped there for medical schools. <\/p>\n In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling on the Education Department to suspend or terminate an accreditor\u2019s federal recognition if it violates federal civil rights law, including engaging \u201cin unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise\u201d of DEI initiatives. The order also directed the federal government to investigate the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools and has since dropped its DEI standards. <\/p>\n The LCME then voted last month to dilute its recently adopted curricular standards on structural competency, which teaches future doctors about how political, economic and social issues\u2014such as food insecurity\u2014influence health outcomes. That change will only hinder the government\u2019s stated aims of its nutrition education push, Seres said. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s going to be devastating. We were finally training physicians to be sensitive to these issues,\u201d he said. \u201cIf patients can\u2019t obtain the healthy food we\u2019re telling them to eat, then why are we telling them to eat it?\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, he worries that MAHA\u2019s influence over the expanded nutrition education curricula may further diminish trust in medical experts. <\/p>\n \u201cMedical schools will strive to do a good job of providing this increased nutrition training,\u201d Seres said. \u201cWhat I am concerned about is how it will be perceived. Because of where it\u2019s coming from, it may have a deleterious effect on scientific credibility in general and nutrition science specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the Trump administration\u2019s urging, 53 medical schools are expanding their nutrition education curriculum. Starting next fall, those medical schools\u2014including programs at Tufts University, the University of Florida and George Washington University\u2014will require students to complete at least 40 hours of nutrition education. While all of the nearly 200 medical schools in the United States<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[483,496,3140,15685,2225,588],"class_list":{"0":"post-46129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-beef","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-medical","11":"tag-nutrition","12":"tag-pledge","13":"tag-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Skepticism of Curricular Control <\/h2>\n