Some of the most useful training a Georgia State University nursing student gets happens at a cutting board. At the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions, students in the Health Meets Food curriculum dice avocados, chop onions and rework recipes in a culinary medicine kitchen, learning firsthand how the food on a patient's plate connects to the diseases they treat.
Why a nursing school built a kitchen class
The gap is well documented. Poor diet contributes to chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, which together kill more than a million Americans a year, yet nutrition has rarely been a priority in clinical training. A 2022 study found medical students received an average of just 1.2 hours of nutrition education per year.
Washington has started to respond. Earlier this year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that 73 of the country's roughly 160 medical schools would raise nutrition education to 40 hours a year. Georgia State's program launched in 2020, years before that push.
What students actually cook
The class is run in partnership with the university's Nutrition Department and its culinary medicine program. Instead of memorizing general guidelines, students learn to fit them to real patients: how to cook on a tight budget, or how to follow the dietary limits that come with a specific diagnosis. A diabetic patient who needs to cut carbohydrates, for example, doesn't have to give up macaroni and cheese. Students learn to swap in whole-grain pasta and fold vegetables into the sauce.
Then they turn the lesson on themselves, redesigning a recipe for one of their own favorite meals to make it healthier.
Dr. Jessica Ann Marcus, a professor of nursing at Georgia State, says the point is credibility. A nurse who has cooked healthy food herself is better prepared to advocate for a patient's nutrition, and one who has found personal value in small changes can tell patients, with conviction, that those changes are doable and will add up.
The program is one more piece of Georgia State's growing presence downtown, alongside projects like the new Panther quad at Hurt Park and the university's $107 million campus remake.
Original reporting by Cari Shane for Atlanta Magazine. Photo by Meg Buscema.
