he importance of nutrition education in T the training of health professions students and practitioners has been a major scientific, social, and political issue for the past 20 years. When participants at the 1962 Chicopee Falls Conference on Teaching Nutrition in Medical Schools reviewed the status of nutrition education at that time (l), they noted that although the role of nutritional factors in the prevention, pathogenesis, and treatment of disease had been well-documented, few physicians had a working knowledge of nutrition. Traditional nutrition instruction emphasized nutrient deficiency diseases seldom seen in the United States, yet failed to cover the role of nutrition in prevention or treatment of common chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, or heart disease. Most health professions schools lacked adequate instruction programs and well-trained faculty in nutrition; the few programs that did exist were so poorly integrated into preclinical and clinical curricula that it was difficult to determine the topics that were actually taught.
This situation remained unchanged throughout the following decade. In the early 1970s, disclosures of the extent to which the U.S. population suffered from either over-or undernutrition (2) stimulated a second major conference. The 1972 Williamsburg Conference on Guidelines for Nutrition Education Programs produced specific suggestions as to @ 1981 by 'I'he Regents o f the University of California