In response to an inquiry from Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the AAMC submitted a Sept. 10 letter outlining the medical education community’s ongoing commitment to advancing nutrition education within medical training. Specifically, the AAMC’s letter (PDF) outlined recent resources developed by the association on the issue and highlighted major strides in enhancing such curricular content in recent years, including an increase from 38% of medical schools in 2014 to 94% of schools in 2024 reporting having nutrition content required in the curricula beyond that related to the basic sciences. The letter also outlined three specific commitments the AAMC has made to continue to build on this work, including: issuing a position statement and call to action in fall 2025 affirming the responsibility of academic medicine to address nutrition in the context of chronic disease; integrating nutrition education content at annual and regional meetings of educators and leaders in academic medicine, beginning in fall 2025; and hosting a first-of-its-kind event for medical educators, “Convening on Best Practices in Medical Nutrition Education” in April 2026.
This week, the MAHA Commission released its Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, which included a recommended action related to medical schools and nutrition. Specifically, the report called for the HHS and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to “address the current monopolies that exist for accreditors of medical education programs” by “bring[ing] in competing accreditors,” including those with a focus on treating the root causes of chronic disease.