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Review
. 2023 Jun 13;14(5):422-427.
doi: 10.1136/flgastro-2022-102089. eCollection 2023.

Teaching medical students about nutrition: from basic principles to practical strategies

Glenys Jones  1 , Angela M Craigie  2 , Suzanne M M Zaremba  2 , Ally Jaffee  3 , Duane D Mellor  4   5
Affiliations
Review

Teaching medical students about nutrition: from basic principles to practical strategies

Glenys Jones et al. Frontline Gastroenterol. .

Abstract

Poor nutrition is widely recognised as one of the key modifiable risks to health and life, with doctors in an ideal position to recognise when suboptimal nutrition is impacting on their patients' health and provide them with advice and support to create sustainable and achievable diet and lifestyle modifications. However, it has been acknowledged that nutrition training within medical schools is extremely varied, and in many cases inadequate. The Association for Nutrition UK Undergraduate Curriculum in Nutrition for Medical Doctors provides medical schools with guidance on what should be included in the training of all medical students. This paper discusses three key ways in which medical schools can support the implementation of nutrition into their teaching; incorporating nutrition within the core medical curriculum teaching, the use of subject specific experts to support and deliver nutrition training, and the inclusion of nutrition within formal assessment so as to reinforce and cement learnings into practical, applicable actions and advice.

Keywords: NUTRITION.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors are all members of the AfN Interprofessional Group on Medical Nutrition Education and were involved in the development of the AfN undergraduate nutrition curriculum for medical doctors. AJ is cofounder of Nutritank, an advocacy group campaigning for nutrition education within medical student training.

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