Doctors are biased against higher-weight patients. Can nutrition education help them change? RFK Jr. plans to require medical schools to include the instruction or risk losing federal funding

https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/24/rfk-jr-nutrition-education-medical-schools/ Fewer than a third of medical students in the U.S. receive the recommended minimum of 25 hours of nutrition education, and more than half report receiving no formal education on the topic at all. Kennedy wants that to change: “One of the things we’re gonna do at NIH is to really give a carrot and stick to medical schools across the country saying you gotta put in your first-year curriculum a really good, robust nutrition course,” he said in an Instagram video earlier this month. While the specifics of this plan are unclear, the general goal is one that nutrition and food policy experts have been calling for for years, STAT’s Sarah Todd reports. And some people even see enhanced nutrition education as a way to combat the bias against higher-weight patients that’s entrenched in the medical profession. Read more from Sarah on the potential benefits.