Eating fruits and vegetables ‘can benefit mental health’

Greater consumption of fruits and vegetables could improve a person's mental wellbeing, according to a study from the University of Warwick.

Using data from the Health Survey for England, the team was able to establish that variations in mental health status were consistently associated with an individual's fruit and vegetable consumption.

It was observed that 33.5 percent of respondents with high mental wellbeing ate five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, compared with only 6.8 percent who ate less than one portion.

Though other health-related behaviours were linked to mental wellbeing, only smoking rates and fruit and vegetable consumption demonstrated a consistent association in both men and women.

Dr Saverio Stranges, the research paper's lead author, said: "These novel findings suggest that fruit and vegetable intake may play a potential role as a driver, not just of physical, but also of mental wellbeing in the general population."

This could be an important discovery given current Department of Health efforts to ensure that mental health is treated as being equally important to physical health.