We all know that eating ‘5 a day’ – five servings of fruit and vegetables – is good for your physical health, reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer and many other conditions. Now researchers have found that it may be just as beneficial for your mental health. Researchers from the University of Warwick, UK, were investigating how mental wellbeing are affected by behaviors linked to health (like smoking, drinking, obesity, and fruit/vegetable intake) in a study of 13,983 adults when they made the surprising finding. Nearly two-thirds of the people with high mental wellbeing ate three or more servings of fruit and vegetables every day (5 or more servings, 33.5% and 3-4 servings, 31.4%). Only 6.8% of people who ate less than two servings a day had high mental wellbeing. In contrast, smoking and obesity were linked to a greater likelihood of having low mental wellbeing.
(Source: BMJ Open, 2014; 4 (9): e005878 DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005878)
