"Nearly a third of U.S. medical schools have signed agreements with the Trump administration to boost nutrition curriculum."

"In early March, in the lobby of the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood alongside medical leaders and other cabinet members to make an announcement.

The administration had secured agreements with over 50 medical schools to provide at least 40 hours of nutrition education as part of a medical-school degree, Kennedy said—nearly a third of the roughly 160 accredited medical schools in the United States. Major medical groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges also had added their support.

The agreements addressed an issue the AMA had identified 60 years earlier, and would constitute a “transformative breakthrough” that would reshape doctoral training, Kennedy said. “This is how we implement the MAHA agenda. This is how we make America healthy again.”

There has long been bipartisan agreement that medical schools should incorporate more nutrition research, and it has been a longstanding goal of the Make America Healthy Again movement. But the idea has gained renewed attention as Kennedy, during more recent appearances on Capitol Hill, has highlighted the medical school agreements as key to addressing chronic health conditions."

Rebekah Alvey Reports for Civil Eats May 12, 2026. [2]