Doctors know nutrition matters. Most feel unprepared to act on it. That gap is costing us.

In a survey of 853 UK medical students and doctors, more than 70% reported receiving fewer than two hours of nutrition training across their entire time at medical school.¹ In a separate survey of 142 junior doctors, 92% said they believed patients expected them to have a sound understanding of nutrition, yet only 26% felt confident discussing it.²

This is one of the most under-discussed disconnects in UK healthcare. Nutrition is central to the prevention, treatment and management of the conditions that place the greatest burden on the NHS, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, certain cancers, and a growing range of mental health conditions. General practitioners are often the first and most consistent point of contact for patients with these conditions. And yet the training infrastructure to support them to act meaningfully on nutrition is, by their own assessment, almost entirely absent.

A curriculum that has not kept pace

The reasons for this are structural, not individual. Medical education in the UK is extensive and rigorously assessed, but it operates under intense competition for curriculum time. Nutrition has historically been treated as a supplementary topic, something covered in passing within other modules, rather than a core clinical competency in its own right.

A 2025 scoping review published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, drawing on studies from across England, found that nutrition education in undergraduate medical training was fragmented, inconsistently assessed and rarely embedded in clinical practice placements.³ Where nutrition content did appear, it was most commonly delivered as knowledge-based instruction — what the guidelines say, rather than as practical preparation for having nutrition conversations with patients.

The contrast with surgical training is instructive. A separate analysis of UK postgraduate medical curricula found that surgical programmes included a median of 30 nutrition-related learning objectives, compared with a median of 8.5 in medical programmes, despite the fact that GPs and physicians are far more likely than surgeons to encounter patients where nutrition is a meaningful lever for change.⁴

The NHS Long Term Plan said this needed to change

The NHS Long Term Plan, published in 2019, stated explicitly that "we will ensure nutrition has a greater place in professional education training."⁵ The Association for Nutrition took on responsibility for the UK Undergraduate Curriculum in Nutrition for newly qualified doctors in 2018, developing a framework designed to ensure that all medical graduates have at least a foundational competence in nutrition.⁶ But curriculum frameworks and actual taught hours are different things — and the evidence suggests the gap between stated ambition and clinical reality remains wide.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services published a Medical Education Nutrition Competency Framework in January 2026, setting out a minimum of 40 hours of nutrition training for undergraduate medical education, a figure that reflects a fundamentally different level of institutional commitment to the subject.⁷

The case for investment in primary care nutrition

The argument for addressing this is not simply about professional development. It is about leverage. A GP who is confident discussing nutrition with patients, who knows what to say, how to say it, and when to refer, is one of the most cost-effective public health assets the NHS has. Diet-related conditions account for a significant proportion of GP consultations, hospital admissions and long-term prescribing costs. The potential return on investing in nutrition literacy within primary care is substantial.

Emerging models of dietitian integration within primary care networks are beginning to demonstrate what this can look like in practice. A case study published by the British Dietetic Association found that embedding a dietitian within a GP practice multi-disciplinary team led to measurable reductions in GP referrals, reduced prescribing costs and improved patient outcomes — particularly for patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity.⁸

These models remain the exception rather than the rule. Scaling them requires not just workforce investment, but a genuine shift in how nutrition is positioned within health systems — from an optional add-on to a core clinical priority.

That is the change NWF believes is worth backing.

Sources:

1. Mogre, V. et al. (2021). 'Are We Neglecting Nutrition in UK Medical Training? A Quantitative Analysis of Nutrition-Related Education in Postgraduate Medical Training Curriculums.' PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8000414/

2. NNEdPro Global Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health. (2022). Survey of junior doctors on nutrition confidence. Reported in: 'New curriculum aims to bring nutrition into medical education.' NutraIngredients, September 2022.

3. Nutritional Education in Medical Curricula and Clinical Practice: A Scoping Review. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics (2025). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11883500/

4. Mogre, V. et al. (2021). Op. cit.

5. NHS England. (2019). The NHS Long Term Plan. https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/

6. Association for Nutrition. 'Nutrition Training for Medical Doctors.' https://www.associationfornutrition.org/careers-nutrition/wider-workforce/nutrition-training-for-medical-doctors

7. US Department of Health and Human Services. (2026). Medical Education Nutrition Competency Framework. University of Missouri. https://medicine.missouri.edu/sites/default/files/Education/Nutrition_Competencies_Framework_Final_January_2026.pdf

8. British Dietetic Association. (2023). 'Case Study – Primary Care Network Dietitians in Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS FT.' Cited in: foodfacts.org, 'Nutrition training for doctors: what current UK and US evidence suggests for patient care' (April 2026).