Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday unveiled a new effort aimed at increasing the amount of nutrition education taught in medical schools.
For months, Kennedy has urged medical schools to expand their nutrition curricula and warned that institutions that refuse to do so could face cuts in federal funding, while those that adopt the changes could receive public recognition.
The health secretary has repeatedly argued that doctors receive insufficient training in nutrition, which he believes contributes to a health system that relies more on medications to manage chronic diseases than diet-based prevention, an argument many experts consider too simplistic.
According to senior officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as of Thursday morning, 53 medical schools had voluntarily signed on to the initiative. Institutions will administer 40 hours of nutrition education or a 40-hour competency equivalent starting in fall 2026, Kennedy said at an event.
“This is how we implement the Maha (Make America Healthy Again) agenda,” Kennedy said as he introduced what he called “a transformative advance in medical education that will reshape the way we train doctors in our country.”
Under the initiative, medical schools are asked to evaluate how much nutrition instruction they currently offer, designate a faculty member responsible for overseeing nutrition education, and publish a web page describing how the school will achieve a total of 40 hours of nutrition training for medical students.
The announcement marks a step forward for Kennedy’s Maha agenda within the medical community. Many doctors and researchers have previously criticized the secretary’s positions, particularly on vaccines, calling them conspiratorial or lacking scientific basis.
At the same time, the effort reflects a broader push by the Trump administration to advance its ideological priorities within American higher education, a shift from the country’s longstanding norm of academic independence.
Kennedy’s plan has attracted support from medical schools in Republican- and Democratic-leaning states. Institutions backing the effort include the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Florida, the University of Kentucky, the University of Oklahoma and Texas Tech University, according to the New York Times. Other participants include the University of California, Irvine, George Washington University, New York University and Tufts University.
Several high-ranking universities that had previously reached funding-related agreements with the Trump administration, including Brown University, Columbia University and Cornell University, chose not to join the initiative despite operating some of the most respected medical schools in the country.
Speaking last week, Kennedy also suggested he might try to pull certain foods from the market if companies can’t prove the products are safe. During those comments, he specifically mentioned two major coffee chains.
“We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks: ‘Show us the safety data that shows it’s OK for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar,'” Kennedy told an audience in Texas. “I don’t think they’re capable of doing it.”
