New Research Suggests Up to Eight-A-Day Can Make You Happier
11 Jul 2016 --- Eating more fruit and vegetables can substantially increase people’s later happiness levels, according to new research. Happiness benefits were detected for each extra daily portion of fruit and vegetables up to eight portions per day.
The study is one of the first major scientific attempts to explore psychological well-being beyond the traditional finding that fruit and vegetables can reduce risk of cancer and heart attacks.
The findings will be published in the August edition of the American Journal of Public Health.
“Nutrition is important and fundamental to humans,” Andrew Oswald, PhD who is Professor of Economics and Behavioral Science at the University of Warwick, and one of the authors, told NutritionInsight.
“This is the strongest evidence available. The message for eating more fruit and vegetables is more effective. Therefore, this kind of evidence will encourage more people to eat more fruit and vegetables per day.”
In the UK, the current guidance is to eat 5 fruit and veg a day for good health, but this focuses more on “long distance health,” Professor Oswald adds. “These results show that eating more fruit and veg provide rather quicker economic benefits.”
The work is a collaboration between the University of Warwick, England and the University of Queensland, Australia. The authors adjusted the effects on incident changes in happiness and life satisfaction for people’s changing incomes and personal circumstances.
The “best food diaries in the world” were used to gain the results for this study, according to Professor Oswald. The longitudinal food diaries of 12,385 randomly sampled Australian adults over 2007, 2009, and 2013 in the Household, Income, and Labor Dynamics in Australia Survey. These subjects also had their psychological well-being measured.
The authors found large positive psychological benefits within two years of an improved diet. In fact, people who changed from almost no fruit and veg to eight portions of fruit and veg a day experienced an increase in life satisfaction equivalent to moving from unemployment to employment.
The researchers found that happiness increased incrementally for each extra daily portion of fruit and vegetables up to eight portions per day. The well-being improvements occurred within 24 months.
Cancer
Professor Oswald said: “Eating fruit and vegetables apparently boosts our happiness far more quickly than it improves human health. People’s motivation to eat healthy food is weakened by the fact that physical-health benefits, such as protecting against cancer, accrue decades later. However, well-being improvements from increased consumption of fruit and vegetables are closer to immediate.”
Western diet
The study has policy implications, particularly in the developed world where the typical citizen eats an unhealthy diet. The findings could be used by health professionals to persuade people to consume more fruits and vegetables.
Dr Redzo Mujcic, Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, and co-author of the study, said: “Perhaps our results will be more effective than traditional messages in convincing people to have a healthy diet. There is a psychological payoff now from fruit and vegetables -- not just a lower health risk decades later.”
One part of the study examined information from the Australian Go for 2&5 Campaign. The campaign was run in some Australian states which have promoted the consumption of two portions of fruit and five portions of vegetables each day.
Antioxidants
“The biochemistry of fruit and vegetables is getting better,” Professor Oswald concludes. The academics think it may be possible eventually to link this study to current research into antioxidants which suggests a connection between optimism and carotenoid in the blood. However, they argue that further biochemical research is needed in this area.
gments of the food and beverage market, including alcohol, dairy, candy, bakery, snacks, savoury, diet and health as well as animal feed.
by Kerina Tull
