Policy or PR? RFK Jr. in Medical Schools Checking information on nutritional stress

Earlier this month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a “transformational change” in addressing the nation’s chronic disease epidemic: 53 U.S. medical schools will require at least 40 hours of nutrition education for doctors.

For several weeks, Street Arrow News has surveyed schools designated by the Department of Health and Human Services, and found that many already meet or exceed the 40-hour limit. The survey raises questions about how much the policy will actually change existing training.

Additionally, experts told SAN that expanding nutrition education alone is unlikely to meaningfully change Americans’ diets and address the burden of chronic disease.

Many schools already meet the new standards

SAN contacted all 53 schools HHS said will require at least 40 hours of nutrition education beginning in fall 2026. Of the 24 who responded, 18 said they had already reached or exceeded the 40-hour limit.

Four reported providing less than 40 hours and said they planned to improve nutrition training. West Virginia University School of Medicine currently requires 10 hours with an additional 16 to 20 elective hours; Kansas City University offers 15 to 20 hours; The University of Nebraska curriculum includes 21 hours; And the University of South Florida provides 36 hours.

One school can’t measure hours, and another — Xavier University of Louisiana — isn’t scheduled to open its medical school until 2027.

Taken together, the findings suggest that the latest HHS announcement—which Kennedy emphasized will “change the way doctors are trained in our country”—largely highlights schools that already prioritize nutrition training, rather than a sweeping change in medical education.

“Our curriculum committee, before the request from Health and Human Services, probably about two years ago, that they wanted us to tackle nutrition and take our nutrition curriculum to the next level,” said Deborah Dewaye, senior associate dean of undergraduate medical education at the University of South Florida.

“The Trump administration has stepped up the pressure on how quickly we can implement curriculum change,” she told SAN.

Each medical school develops its own curriculum although there are certain minimum standards – set to national exams – that students must meet.

Next year, the University of South Florida will implement a new curriculum with about 75 hours of nutrition training, covering basic concepts, special topics – such as infant nutrition for children or breastfeeding for future OB-GYNs – and more advanced work, including designing disease-specific diets and planning patient-specific diets.

The University of California Irvine Medical School also told SAN that the school had already improved nutrition education before the HHS announcement.

“Our medical students already receive about 40 hours of nutrition-related education, and beginning this fall we will expand that to 50 hours of dedicated nutrition training, integrated into the core curriculum,” said Shaysta Malik, professor of medicine and associate dean for integrative health at Irvine’s College of Health Sciences and Sensory Health.

While a handful of medical schools highlighted by Kennedy have already implemented the 40-hour minimum, many medical schools across the country likely still fall short of that limit.

Several surveys conducted in 2015 found that only 29% of US medical schools met the then-recommended minimum of 25 hours of nutrition education, while 75% of schools did not offer clinical nutrition courses. Many specialists who treat nutrition-related diseases said they received little or no nutrition training during fellowships or residency programs.

In 2022, Congress introduced a resolution urging medical schools to better address nutrition education, prompting several schools to expand related training.

Government trespass?

On the face of it, requiring physicians to spend more time learning about nutrition seems like a reasonable step toward addressing the nation’s significant chronic disease burden. Today, 60% of Americans have at least one chronic disease while 40% have two or more, costing trillions of dollars in direct medical costs, according to the CDC. While researchers do not fully understand what causes the rise in chronic diseases – especially in young people – poor diet, other lifestyle factors such as lack of exercise or drug and alcohol use play a major role.

However, some critics say that Kennedy’s move is a government oversight and oversimplifies the nation’s health and food security crisis.

“It’s a good example when (Kennedy) says things that often have some truth in what he’s saying, but that implementation is important,” said Jill Rosenthal, director of public health policy at the Center for American Progress.

“I think it’s a bad example that the federal government is pressuring medical schools to change their curriculum,” she told SAN. “He’s threatened them a lot and said he can use federal funding as leverage, which is not a good argument for policy changes.”

DeWaay acknowledged the general concern about government involvement, but said the approach to the HHS effort was well done.

“I’m a big skeptic of the government, and it’s a bipartisan comment. HHS did a great job of asking for their curriculum. The goals were very well written,” she told SAN. “They give schools the choice to figure out what’s best for their curriculum. The number of hours they expect is very reasonable.”

DeWaay, Rosenthal and others noted that improving nutrition and combating the nation’s chronic disease epidemic will require more than expanding nutrition education for physicians.

“Just providing information about doctors is not enough,” said Devay. “The nutrition curriculum is one piece of a very complex puzzle.”

For one, doctors need time to discuss nutrition with patients, yet most primary care visits last only 10 to 20 minutes because of high patient volumes, administrative demands and payment models that prioritize efficiency over comprehensive visits. Allowing doctors to be reimbursed for time spent counseling patients about nutrition could help, said Tami Hendricks, dean of Touro University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. But, she said, not all providers can bill for those services under existing insurance regulations.

Some, though not all, health insurance plans cover dietary services, which can help reduce the burden on doctors. But Hendricks, who is also a pediatrician, said many of her patients struggle to find time to see a doctor, let alone schedule an extra appointment with a dietitian.

Additionally, critics say the Trump administration has done little to address the nation’s persistent food security challenges.

More than 18 million Americans live in food deserts where they have limited access to affordable, healthy food. Fruits, vegetables and other fresh, minimally processed foods cost two to three times more than ultra-processed foods such as chips or frozen meals. Nearly 50 million Americans will struggle to afford food by 2024. More than half of students in US public schools rely on free or reduced-price school lunches, which are highly unhealthy, often contain ultra-processed and fried foods, and regularly exceed the recommended daily levels of sodium and fat.

Yet recent legislation has targeted food assistance programs. Last year, Congress passed a big beauty bill, which cut $186 billion over 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and imposed tougher work conditions — mandating that recipients either work at least 20 hours a week or receive benefits for only three months in a three-year period.

Overall, Kennedy’s push to restructure nutrition education for medical students is a policy that “operates in a vacuum,” Rosenthal explained. “It’s a failure to consider the factors that really affect what we all eat.”