Children Who Eat More Fruits And Vegetables Have Better Mental Health – New Study By Ailsa Welch, University of East Anglia and Richard PG Hayhoe, Anglia Ruskin University via Natural Blaze
Around 10%-20% of adolescents globally suffer from a mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression, according to the World Health Organization. It’s also been shown that half of all mental health conditions start by age 14. Given how important and formative adolescence is in a person’s life, finding ways of protecting or improving mental wellbeing in children and young people is extremely important.
We already know how valuable good nutrition and diet are for physical health – which is why experts recommend we aim for five servings of fruits and vegetables a day (“five-a-day”). More recently, research has also started to suggest that nutrition could influence mental health. While more research is still needed in this area, our recent study found found that eating a more nutritious diet, rich in fruit and vegetables, and having healthier breakfasts and lunch habits were associated with better mental wellbeing in children.
To conduct our study, we used data from the Norfolk Children and Young People Health and Wellbeing Survey. This collected data on mental wellbeing and different things that impact it – such as socioeconomic status and age – from children at over 50 schools in Norfolk. This allowed us to investigate the importance of fruit and vegetable consumption and meal choices (such as what students ate for breakfast or lunch) with mental wellbeing in this age group.
Support Our Site
Now is your chance to support Gospel News Network.
We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
Our analyses looked at 1,253 primary school pupils aged 8-11 years and 7,570 secondary school pupils aged 12-18 years. Using different questionnaires for the two groups, we assessed their mental wellbeing by asking them them to score how often they had the feelings described in statements such as “I’ve been feeling good about myself” or “I’ve been feeling loved”. The scores for each statement were added together to give a total score. The higher this total score is, the greater a child’s mental wellbeing.
