AMA applauds Dietary Guidelines, announces commitments on nutrition

The following statement is attributable to:
Bobby Mukkamala, MD
President, American Medical Association

“The American Medical Association (AMA) applauds the Administration’s new Dietary Guidelines for spotlighting the highly processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, and excess sodium that fuel heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other chronic illnesses. The Guidelines affirm that food is medicine and offer clear direction patients and physicians can use to improve health.

“Today the AMA is making significant commitments to improve clinical competency, deliver educational resources for physicians, and work with Congress to enact meaningful, lasting nutrition change that can improve lives. The AMA is focused on helping physicians translate this science into everyday care and helping patients improve their overall health.”

The AMA will:

1. Launch a curated collection of nutrition education resources and continuing medical education (CME) on the AMA Ed Hub™. Additionally, the AMA will make curated educational resources available through institutional curriculum products that face specific audiences of medical students, residents and fellows, and physicians;
2. Convene a series of roundtables with physicians, nutrition experts, and public health leaders to strengthen nutrition education and clinical competency. These efforts–driven by the new Guidelines–should also make it easier for physicians to talk to patients about the role of food in preventing, and even treating, chronic disease; and
3. Work with Congress to incentivize nutrient dense foods, expand food labeling efforts, define ultra-processed foods, and increase investment in nutrition research.

The American Medical Association is the physicians’ powerful ally in patient care. As the only medical association that convenes 190+ state and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health care.  The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises and, driving the future of medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care.