Update on Nutrition, Metabolism, and Lifestyle Curricula for Medical Education, Research, and Practice: USA

Although physicians are expected to counsel their patients about nutrition-related health conditions, surveys report minimal to no medical nutrition education improvements in the United States medical schools. From 1998 to 2005, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduced and funded the Nutrition Academic Award program among 21 medical schools to incorporate nutrition into their curricula. Since then, nutrition champions have developed several education models and continue to advocate for inclusion of nutrition content in the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and for recognition of nutrition as a national subspecialty in medicine. As a result, the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) and NIH published recommendations for remodeling nutrition education, training, and research. As medical education has shifted to a competency-based system, an inter-professional and competency-based approach to curricular changes was recommended. As a result, ASN aims to launch a coordinating center using a public-private partnership platform to achieve those goals. This collaborative will further allow for inclusion of all healthcare professionals engaged in improving patients' nutrition-related outcomes. This article describes the educational context and steps needed to advance the field of medical nutrition, metabolism, and lifestyles in the United States.