{"id":247055,"date":"2026-07-19T09:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T09:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247055\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T09:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T09:49:07","slug":"philadelphia-area-medical-schools-join-push-for-nutrition-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247055\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia-area medical schools join push for nutrition education"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration has pushed medical schools to spend more time teaching nutrition education to future doctors, and three local medical schools have since signed on to a national program called Advancing Nutrition Education.\n<\/p>\n<p>The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and Cooper Medical School at Rowan University pledged to spend at least 40 hours teaching medical students about nutrition. Around the country, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/nutrition-education\/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">73 schools<\/a> have signed on to this program so far, out of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/institutions\/specialized-colleges\/2026\/06\/23\/medical-school-boom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more than 200<\/a> medical schools.\n<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/press-room\/fact-sheet-sec-kennedy-sec-mcmahon-celebrate-med-school-commitments-to-increase-nutrition-training-for-future-doctors.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a recent statement<\/a> announcing which schools signed on, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said \u201cpoor diets are the primary driver of America\u2019s chronic disease epidemic\u201d and that he wants doctors to help patients eat better, to help prevent future illness.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Cooper Medical School already spends more than 40 hours teaching students about nutrition, but will look for ways to update their curriculum, said <a href=\"https:\/\/cmsru.rowan.edu\/about\/leadership-team\/sangita-phadtare.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sangita Phadtare<\/a>, professor of biomedical sciences and assistant dean.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are always evolving our curriculum to better prepare our students to meet the needs of their future patients,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of evidence-based literature, which is published on this topic, which shows that nutrition is paramount when you are thinking about preventing chronic diseases.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>As an example, she pointed to an experience she had while participating in the school\u2019s community outreach work in Camden, where she learned that local diabetes patients weren\u2019t sure how to read nutrition labels to buy food that fits their diets. The school will add case studies where medical students learn how to help patients read food labels and explain concepts like<a href=\"https:\/\/www.health.harvard.edu\/diet-and-nutrition\/what-are-rdas-dris-and-dvs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> recommended dietary allowances<\/a>, which refer to how much of a nutrient most healthy people need per day.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7341,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-247055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nutrition","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}