Nutrition Education in Psychiatry Residency Programs: A Call to Action

The burden of disease attributable to mental health is expected to rise in the coming decades. Poor nutritional status is considered a modifiable risk factor for general mental health. In fact, nutrition interventions are now accepted as a core strategy in mental healthcare to combat physical health inequalities and life-expectancy gap in people with certain psychiatric disorders. However, most psychiatrists are not familiar with evidence for the potential therapeutic benefits of diet in psychiatric illness, and this may be related to sparse nutrition education for physicians. Thus, there is a need to integrate nutritional management in psychiatric practice, but there is a gap in medical education that would support this practice. Here, we discuss evidence for and challenges in 1) assessing diet quality in psychiatric illness, 2) recommending improvements in diet quality and specific dietary patterns in psychiatric illness, and 3) recommending dietary supplements in psychiatric illness. This discussion serves as a call to develop nutrition curricula within psychiatry residency programs.