When Americans go to the doctor for a routine visit, the powerful impact of food on their health deserves more attention.
We live in a country burdened by high rates of diet-related chronic illnesses: obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, cancers and more. Yet believe it or not, doctors in the U.S. typically don’t get rigorous, evidence-based training in nutrition science. They are not adequately trained to advise patients about nutrition or to provide them with practical advice about food choices at the grocery store, in restaurants or while cooking.
That’s scandalous, especially in a nation where our unhealthy relationship with food creates enormous social and economic costs.
Now for the good news: America is poised to resolve this long-standing void in medical education.
Two years ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution authored by Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts that calls for meaningful nutrition education in medical schools, residencies and fellowship programs. Congress already allocates over $16 billion annually in federal funding for physician training. With the measure’s passage, lawmakers made it clear this training should include comprehensive education about the role of nutrition in health.
What happened next was magic: Top organizations in medical education at the undergraduate and graduate levels held a summit last year and agreed to identify a list of core nutrition competencies for future medical students and residents.
Over this past year, academic researchers worked with key stakeholders, including the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education, to develop a list of 36 nutrition competencies recommended for incorporation in undergraduate or graduate medical education. The list was published in a Sept. 30 article in JAMA Network Open, with Dr. David M. Eisenberg of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as the lead author.
With this list, accrediting bodies for medical schools and residency programs now can make sure America’s future doctors will be trained and evaluated on nutrition competencies. They can work to ensure medical trainees learn how to listen carefully and nonjudgmentally while taking a nutrition history, as well as how social conditions impact the way people eat, how to make referrals for issues such as food insecurity, and how to work more effectively and cooperatively with registered dietitians
