Some US medical schools to teach nutrition under government deal

By Leah Douglas

WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - About a fourth of U.S. medical schools will expand their nutrition education offerings this autumn as part of a deal with the administration of President Donald Trump, said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday.

Kennedy and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have pursued the deal as part of Trump's Make America Healthy Again agenda, which promotes healthy eating and has also underpinned Kennedy's actions to overhaul federal vaccine policy.

Under the voluntary commitment, 53 medical schools will administer 40 hours of nutrition education or a 40-hour competency equivalent starting in autumn 2026, Kennedy said at an event at the Department of Health and Human Services. The Trump administration will not dictate the curriculum, he said.

Kennedy has said such nutrition education is necessary to better equip doctors to advise patients on diet-related chronic disease.

"Medical education must teach the science of nutrition," Kennedy said.

There are about 200 accredited medical schools in the U.S., roughly 160 of which offer doctor of medicine degrees. The remainder offer doctor of osteopathic medicine degrees.

The majority of the schools joining the voluntary commitment are MD-granting institutions, said a senior HHS official, without elaborating on the breakdown.

Participating schools include the University of Florida, Tulane University, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine, according to HHS.

Speaking in Washington last week, Kennedy described working with medical schools, exam administrators and accreditors to design the agreement.

He said some medical schools hesitated because they perceived the deal to be partisan. The Trump administration has made efforts to influence higher education, like threatening to cut federal funding to universities over diversity programs and policies for transgender students, raising concerns about free speech and academic freedom.

"A lot of them didn't want to do it because they thought it was a Trump program," Kennedy said on February 24 at a conference held by the National Association of Counties.

"We've been able to convince them that there's no such thing as Republican children or Democratic children. We all want our kids to be healthy."