Is Psychological Well-Being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables?

By David G. Blanchflower, Andrew J. Oswald, S. Stewart-Brown. Social Indicators Research, 2012

211 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Little is known about the influence of people’s diet on their psychological well-being. This study provides evidence of a link between the consumption of fruit and vegetables and high well-being. In cross-sectional data, happiness and mental health rise in an approximately dose–response way with the number of daily portions of fruit and vegetables. Well-being peaks at approximately 7 portions per day. We document this relationship in three data sets, covering approximately 80,000 randomly selected British individuals, and for seven measures of well-being (life satisfaction, WEMWBS mental well-being, GHQ mental disorders, self-reported health, happiness, nervousness, and feeling low). The pattern is robust to adjustment for a large number of other demographic, social and economic variables. Reverse causality and problems of confounding remain possible. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our analysis, how government policy-makers might wish to react to it, and what kinds of further research—especially randomized trials—would be valuable.

Subfields: Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2bff67f4a63a7994f25849e6ebec84b66577d869

Citations in the corpus

• The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-Being (2013, unknown): “Blanchflower et al. (2012) found that happier individuals have a healthier diet, eating more fruits and vegetables.”