“Fruits and Vegetables Put
to the Test for Boosting Mood,” There are two components of
psychological health: the absence of mental health disorders
such as depression, as well as the existence of positive
psychological well-being. That’s the focus of an emerging
field of positive psychology focusing on happiness, life
satisfaction, and flourishing, which may translate to physical
benefits such as improvements in blood pressure, immune
function, and longevity. What is the contribution of food
consumption to well-being? Well, studies have linked the
consumption of fruits and vegetables with enhanced well-being. A systematic
review of research found evidence that consuming fruits and
vegetables were associated with increased psychological well-being.
Okay, but that’s just an association. A famous criticism in this area of
research is that maybe there’s just some inherent personality trait
or type of family upbringing that might lead people simultaneously to eat healthily, and also
to have better mental well-being. So the diet is merely correlated
with, but incorrectly gives the appearance of helping to
cause the level of well-being. But recent research circumvented
this problem by seeing if changes in diet are correlated
with changes in mental well-being, in effect studying the evolution
of well-being and happiness after increases in the consumption
of fruits and vegetables. And look at that graph—a straight-line
increase between how much more fruits and veggies people started eating
and their change in life satisfaction over time. Increased fruit and
vegetable consumption appeared predictive of increased happiness,
life satisfaction, and well-being— up to 0.24 life satisfaction points for
an increase of eight portions a day. What does that mean?
Is that a lot? Is that a little? That’s a lot, equal in size
to the psychological gain of going from being unemployed
to get a job.
My Daily Dozen recommendation
is for at least nine servings of fruits and veggies a day. This study was done in Australia.
It was repeated in the UK, and researchers there found the same
thing, though the Brits may need to bump up their daily minimum to
more like 10 or 11 servings a day. Okay, but does eating fruits and veggies
also reduce the risk of depression and anxiety? I mean
well-being is nice, but governments and medical
authorities are often interested in the determinants of major
mental illness, not life satisfaction. And indeed, using the same data set
but instead looking for mental illness, eating fruits and vegetables may
help to protect against future risk of clinical depression
and anxiety as well. A systematic review and meta-
analysis of dozens of studies found that every 100-gram increased intake of
fruit was associated with a 3% reduced risk of depression. That’s about
half an apple, yet less than 10% of most Western populations
even consume a bare minimum. Maybe the problem is we’re just telling
people about the long-term benefits of fruit intake for chronic
disease prevention, rather than the near-immediate
improvements in well-being.
So maybe we should be advertising
the happiness gains, but first, we need to
make sure they’re real. We’ve been talking about associations.
Yes, a healthy diet may reduce the risk of future depression or anxiety, but
being diagnosed with depression or anxiety today could also lead
to lower fruit and vegetable intake. Now, in these studies, you can
indeed show that the increase in fruit and vegetable consumption came
first, and not the other way around, but as the great enlightenment
philosopher pointed out, just because the cock
crows before the dawn doesn’t mean the cock
caused the sun to rise. To prove cause-and-effect you need to put it to the test
with an interventional study. Unfortunately, to date, many
studies were like this, where those randomized to eat fruit
showed significant improvements in anxiety and depression, fatigue,
and emotional distress. Wow, amazing! But that was compared
to chocolate and potato chips. Apples, clementines, and bananas
making people feel better than assorted potato chips and chunky chocolate
wafers—not exactly a revelation. This is the kind of study I’ve been
waiting for: a randomized controlled trial in which young adults were
randomized to a diet-as-usual group, encouraged to eat
more fruits and veggies or a third group was given two servings
of fruits and vegetables a day to eat over and above
their regular diet. And the ones given fruits and
veggies showed improvements in their psychological well-being
with increases in vitality, flourishing, and motivation within just two weeks! However, simply educating people
to eat their fruits and vegetables may not be enough
to reap the full rewards, so perhaps greater emphasis needs to
be placed on actually providing people with fresh produce, for example, offering
free fruit for people when they shop. I know that would certainly
make me happy!
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