HEADLINE SCIENCE
MAY 6, 2026 —Earlier in March, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Education announced an initiative to emphasize nutrition at the nation’s top medical schools. Reflecting U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy’s commitment to preventative medicine, this initiative will require “meaningful nutrition training” for all medical students starting in the fall of 2026.
Citing a 2022 survey that was published in the Journal of Wellness, the announcement is in response to medical students having received only 1.2 hours of formal nutrition education each year. In addition, the vast majority of U.S. medical schools do not even require clinical nutrition courses.
Core competencies in the proposed curricula will include: nutritional content of foods, identification of nutrient deficiencies, understanding of and integration of evidence-based nutrition into clinical care, and screening for food insecurity.
Following the HHS announcement, The American Medical Association (AMA) announced its own nutrition education initiative to support nutrition education for physicians and medical students, directing them to the AMA Ed Hub™.
