Chicago – September 23, 2026 -- The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, working with the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND), has launched an initiative to embed evidence-based nutrition training into U.S. medical school curricula, citing rising attention from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a catalyst for the effort.
Academy rolls out a microcredential framework to standardize nutrition training
The ACEND Nutrition in Medical Education Microcredential Framework allows accredited nutrition and dietetics programs to convert existing coursework into microlearning units aligned with ACEND curriculum competencies and the HHS Medical Education Nutrition Competency Framework. The tool is designed to give medical schools a structured, program-level path to add nutrition content without building curricula from scratch.
HHS attention accelerates a decades-long push for physician nutrition training
The Academy frames the initiative as an extension of its "A Seat at Every Table" campaign and says growing federal focus on nutrition creates an opening to recruit additional partners. Tamara Randall, MS, RDN, LD, CDCES, FAND, the Academy's 2026-2027 President, said the effort keeps registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) expertise central to medical training rather than positioning physicians as nutrition specialists themselves.
"Future physicians do not need to become nutrition experts,