Studies have linked the consumption of fruits and vegetables with enhanced well-being. A systematic review of research found evidence that consuming fruits and vegetables “was associated with increased psychological well-being.” Okay, but that’s just an association.
A famous criticism in this area of research is that maybe there’s just some inherent personality trait or type of family upbringing that might lead people simultaneously to eat in a healthy way and also to have better mental well-being, so that diet is then merely correlated with, but incorrectly gives the appearance of helping to cause, the level of well-being. But a study done in Australis circumvented this problem by seeing if changes in diet are correlated with changes in mental well-being. They found a straight-line increase between how much more fruits and veggies people started eating, and their change in life satisfaction over time.
Increased fruit and vegetable consumption appeared predictive of increased happiness, life satisfaction, and well-being…up to 0.24 life-satisfaction points Which is a lot: equal in size to the psychological gain of going from unemployed to getting a job.
Does eating fruits and veggies also reduce the risk of depression and anxiety? Using the same dataset but instead looking for mental illness, eating fruit and vegetables may help to protect against future risk of clinical depression and anxiety as well.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of dozens of studies found that “every 100-gram increased intake of fruit was associated with a 3 percent reduced risk of depression.” That’s about half an apple, yet “less than 10 percent of most Western populations even consume a bare minimum.”
