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The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) announced its support of the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Aug. 27 call for comprehensive nutrition education reforms in U.S. medical schools.

ACLM leaders emphasized the urgent need for physicians and other health professionals to receive evidence-based training in nutrition for the treatment, remission, and prevention of chronic diseases throughout their undergraduate and graduate (residency and fellowship) medical school years.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence linking diet to health outcomes, many physicians receive too little formal education in this area,” said ACLM President Padmaja Patel, M.D., DipABLM, FACLM, CPE.

“ACLM applauds this initiative and stands ready to continue to provide the expertise and evidence-based resources to help medical schools and residency programs integrate meaningful nutrition education into their curricula. It is essential that physicians be equipped to help patients make healthy, sustainable lifestyle changes if we are to reduce the U.S. burden of chronic disease.”

Since it was founded in 2004, ACLM has delivered more than 1.2 million hours of nutrition and lifestyle medicine education to physicians and other health professionals. ACLM partnerships and programs include:

• ACLM and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville (SOMG) partnered in 2022 to provide LMEd, an open-access, competency-aligned medical school curricula that supports national standards and offers a pathway to achieving tiered ACLM curriculum certification to support and recognize the integration of effective lifestyle medicine and nutrition education.
• Student- and trainee-initiated Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups have been established at 200 academic and health institutions.  
• The Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum (LMRC) fills the nutrition and lifestyle medicine gap in resident education. Since its launch in 2018, the LMRC has rapidly expanded to more than 450 residency programs nationwide.