The University of the Incarnate Word’s School of Osteopathic Medicine is joining more than 50 medical schools in the U.S. pledging to provide comprehensive nutrition education to doctors-in-training. 

In March, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rolled out the Advancing Nutrition Education Across the Medical Continuum initiative, aimed at getting nutrition curriculum into more medical schools. 

A 2023 survey of over 1,000 medical students found that 57% of students reported not receiving formal education in nutrition, a gap in medical training that health professionals and lawmakers have been working to close for decades. 

To participate in the HHS program, schools must provide a minimum of 40 hours of nutrition education or demonstrated mastery of nutrition principles through a competency-based training.

UIW’s School of Osteopathic Medicine was not a part of the original cohort of schools, which included Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, UTHealth Houston’s McGovern Medical School, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

UIW’s School of Osteopathic Medicine, located on the South Side next to Brooks, is one of three osteopathic schools in Texas, and one of two medical schools in San Antonio, the other being UT Health San Antonio’s Long School of Medicine. 

Osteopathic schools teach musculoskeletal manipulation treatments and emphasize a more holistic philosophy, but their core medical training is identical to MD programs.

Dean and Chief Academic Officer of UIW’s School of Osteopathic Medicine John Pham at the UIW Medical Campus in the Brooks City Base neighborhood on the South East side of San Antonio on April 29, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza / San Antonio Report

Osteopathic schools tend to emphasize primary care over specialties. According to the school’s dean, Dr. John Pham, nutrition education was already a big part of their curriculum as a result. 

“We probably do way more than 40 hours,” Pham said. “And it makes sense. We’ve been teaching it, let’s make it formalized.”

Push for nutrition education in medical schools

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda has amplified ultraprocessed food and poor diets as major drivers of disease in the country.

Last year, Texas followed suit. State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 25, the “Make Texas Healthy Again” bill, in part mandating nutrition education in medical schools. That requirement won’t kick in until the Texas Nutrition Advisory Committee, a seven-member board created by the bill, finalizes its nutrition guidelines.

The UT Health San Antonio Long School of Medicine said in an emailed statement that the school wouldn’t be participating in the HHS initiative, and that they were awaiting guidance from the state’s nutrition advisory committee to make adjustments to their curriculum, if needed.

The push for nutrition education also predates MAHA. Health professionals and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been looking to get more nutrition education in medical schools for several decades. 

Poor diets filled with excess sugar, ultraprocessed foods and lacking whole grains, fruits, vegetables and healthy fats have long been recognized as a major driver of chronic disease and early death in the U.S., especially cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity. 

In South Texas and Bexar County, chronic disease burdens are especially high, with obesity and diabetes standing out as major disparities. Limited access to affordable healthy food disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic residents, according to data from the 2025 University Health Community Health Needs Assessment.

Nutrition education in South Texas

Before joining UIW’s School of Osteopathic Medicine and steering the direction of their nutrition curriculum, Dr. Robert Slater studied diet interventions for residents experiencing food insecurity and chronic disease in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. 

The factors behind high rates of chronic disease in South Texas are complicated and intertwined with longstanding social inequities, Slater said. Diet, though still a challenge, is the lower hanging fruit.

“Nutrition education seemed to be out of anything … relatively easier to address,” Slater said. “Environment, socioeconomic status, access — certainly important, but it seemed like nutrition education might be something that could be modified [more easily].”

Because osteopathic schools generally focus more on primary care, family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics, Slater was able to make nutrition a staple of the school curriculum instead of an afterthought. 

Students already get close to the 40-hour minimum in their first two years in training, Slater said, when students spend the most time in the classroom before doing clinical rotations in their final years of schooling. 

The nutrition curriculum starts with the basics, understanding macronutrients, differences between healthy and not-so-healthy fats, metabolism, vitamins and nutrients, the gut microbiome. From there students will also learn more clinical applications, like understanding and communicating with patients to understand where they are and what makes sense for them. 

Cultural competency is especially important in San Antonio and South Texas, Pham said, an area of their nutrition curriculum the school is aiming to develop more. 

Simply recommending that patients eat a Mediterranean-style diet, higher in healthy fats, whole grains and vegetables, is not going to move the needle in San Antonio, where 65% of residents are Hispanic.

“Students are always teasing about the Mediterranean diet. They joke about it,” Pham said. “America’s a melting pot. You cannot think your one way. That’s insulting to the culture.”

Instead, Slater explained, the goal is to advise moderation, as well as replacing certain foods with healthier alternatives — picking whole grain tortillas or brown rice over white, for example. He added that Latin American cuisine is also rich in plenty of healthy foods, beans, avocado and plenty of fruits and vegetables, for example.

Faculty at UIW’s osteopathic school are still evaluating how many total hours students are currently getting in nutrition education and where the curriculum has room to grow, especially for students in their third and fourth years. 

HHS won’t dictate the curriculum itself, just competency metrics for medical students to achieve, based on consensus guidelines published in JAMA.

A formal announcement from HHS of the second cohort of schools, which includes UIW’s School of Osteopathic Medicine, is forthcoming, Pham said.

Participating schools are required to hit the 40-hour minimum or competency equivalent starting in the fall.

“I’m really optimistic,” Slater said. “I think it’d be quite approachable for us to get to 100 hours within the next couple of years. There’s quite a bit of room for expansion.”