Military leaders are continuously challenged to maintain an operationally ready force. Optimal nutrition and health of service members are essential for operational readiness. The prevalence of service members with obesity continues to increase along with preventable cardiometabolic comorbidities and related musculoskeletal issues. Nutrition is a critical link to health, and leaders have a vital role in the nutritional readiness and performance of service members. The Leader Inspired Nutrition (LIN) framework is a proposed solution to leadership engagement within the domain of nutritional fitness. LIN focuses on seven core strategies that leaders can use to cultivate a culture of wellness and nutritional fitness to include: 1. promoting a performance-focused food environment, 2. modelling positive eating behaviors, 3. considering economic factors that affect nutrition choices, 4. assessing nutrition knowledge, 5. evaluating employee performance, 6. valuing employee wellness, and 7. promoting utilization of wellness resources. Equipping military leaders with greater knowledge on how to engage service members on nutrition and healthy lifestyle practices will help to optimize health and workplace performance. Currently, the Department of Defense (DoD) has leaned into the concepts of Total Force Fitness (TFF), and the Army has operationalized TFF as Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) in an effort improve health and readiness. LIN is an approach that would further enhance leader nutrition knowledge, serve as a leader resource for nutrition specific information, and challenge leaders to engage in innovative health promoting leadership strategies. This presentation will provide healthcare providers, scientists, and military decision makers with a novel framework to address preventable threats to warfighter health and readiness and strategies to optimize employee performance at the unit level.