Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a new push Thursday to get medical schools to teach more about nutrition.
For months, Kennedy urged schools to increase nutrition education, threatening funding cuts to those who refused and promising public recognition for those who complied. He has long argued that doctors are poorly trained in nutrition, focusing on treating chronic diseases with drugs rather than preventing them with diet, an approach some experts say is too simplistic.
Fifty-two medical schools have voluntarily agreed to participate in the new initiative, senior Department of Health and Human Services officials told reporters on a call Wednesday. Officials declined to identify the schools and told reporters to await statements from the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Medical Colleges, which create the MCAT test for medical school admissions.
The new initiative asks medical schools to do three things: review how much nutrition training they offer, appoint a faculty member to oversee nutrition education, and create a public page detailing how they plan to reach 40 hours of nutrition education for medical students.
Officials said the initiative is not to mandate a specific curriculum, but to provide a framework within which schools can adapt. Officials said the administration made suggestions to the schools, which they did not elaborate on.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Kennedy wrote a letter to universities in January suggesting 71 topics, including food allergies, dietary supplements, wearable devices, composting and crop rotation. NBC News has not reviewed the letter.
“Although the groups disagree with the specific characteristics we are using, there is broad agreement that doctors in medical school should have a higher curriculum in nutrition,” said one official.
Doctors have argued for decades that medical schools should teach more about nutrition, said Marian Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.
A 2015 study published in the Journal of Biomedical Education found that medical students spend an average of 19 hours on nutrition education during their four years. The study surveyed 133 US medical schools.
But in the early 1960s, the American Medical Association reported that nutrition had received “inadequate recognition, support, and attention” in US medical schools.
In 1969, health experts at the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health concluded that nutrition in medical education was inadequate and recommended that funds be made available for future program development.
“It would be nice if doctors knew more about nutrition, but given the way our health care system works – doctors have 15 minutes with patients – I see two things they really need to know: how to identify a nutritional problem in a patient (which is not as easy as it sounds) and, more importantly, how to refer patients with nutritional problems to a dietitian.”
Critical care physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School Dr. Adam Gaffney said the new material was “scientifically rigorous” and would support schools expanding their nutrition curriculum.
However, Kennedy’s premise, he said, “is that doctors don’t know, care or talk about nutrition and therefore push the pill.”
“That premise is wrong. It misjudges the problem,” Gaffney said. “Americans often eat unhealthily because of financial and time constraints, and because unhealthy food is ubiquitous and convenient and cheap.”
Gaffney said Kennedy has embraced “a number of pseudoscientific” medical ideas, including replacing seed oil with beef tallow, claiming it is a healthier alternative, downplaying the role of vaccines in public health, and pushing unsupported claims that shots are linked to autism.
That “raises questions about what exactly they want to add to existing nutrition teaching in medical schools,” Gaffney said.
