In Case You Haven't Heard…

Abstract

New research has discovered that eating, for example, four extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day can boost people's mental health to such an extent that it can offset half the negative psychological impact of divorce and a quarter of the psychological damage of unemployment, the Warwick Business School reported May 27. Other studies have used people's subjective responses to surveys to discover a link between eating fruit and vegetables and improved well‐being. But this is one of only a few studies that has found objective evidence of the association between fruit and vegetables and psychological health. The study used a representative sample of 7,108 respondents who answered they had not been diagnosed with depression or anxiety in 2007, to see if their diet could predict their chance of depression two years later. The results revealed an inverse relationship between fruit and vegetables and future depression or anxiety — i.e., the more fruit and vegetables people ate, the less likely they were to be diagnosed with a mental illness in later periods.