The world's first scientific society focused on nutrition was founded in 1928 by a group of illustrious biochemists and physiologists in the United States. Each of the founders was a well known scientist whose research was contributing toward the recognition of nutrition as a new specialty within the biological sciences. Each was also actively engaged in teaching and in writing textbooks and reference articles that were helping to define the newly emerging discipline.

Named the American Institute of Nutrition, the society's original purpose was to publish a journal containing research reports in the newly emerging field of nutrition and its first members comprised the editorial board for this journal. As the result of requests from prospective additional members, however, the society was opened to other researchers in 1933 and held its first scientific meeting at the Cornell Medical School in 1934. In 1941 it officially affiliated with the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The society, renamed the American Society for Nutritional Sciences in 1996, is the world's oldest and foremost nutritional science society and its journal, The Journal of Nutrition, is the leader in its category of scientific publications. Nutrition science has, itself, become diversified and the society now encompasses the several specialties that have developed within the science.

In 2005, the ASNS merged with the American Society for Clinical Nutrition (ASCN) and the Society of International Nutrition Research (SINR) to form the American Society for Nutrition