More Fruits, Vegetables Linked With Better Mental Health in Secondary School Students

Higher daily intake of fruit and vegetables was significantly linked with higher mental health scores in secondary school students, according to study findings published in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health.

“As a potentially modifiable factor, both at an individual and societal level, nutrition may therefore represent an important public health target for strategies to address childhood mental well-being,” researchers wrote.

The study included self-reported data from 7570 secondary school and 1253 primary school students from more than 50 schools in Norfolk, England, in 2017.

According to the results, secondary school children who consumed 5 or more fruits and vegetables a day had mental well-being scores 3.73 units higher than those who consumed none. Meanwhile, secondary school children who skipped breakfast had well-being scores 2.73 units lower than those who consumed a conventional-type breakfast, such as cereal, toast, or yogurt. Those who opted solely for an energy drink for breakfast had the lowest scores of all: 3.14 units lower compared with those who ate a conventional breakfast.

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Along the same lines, secondary school students who did not eat lunch had mental well-being scores 2.95 units lower than those who ate a packed lunch.

In primary school students, associations between breakfast/lunch type and mental well-being followed a similar pattern, researchers reported. However, links between the number of servings of fruits and vegetables and mental well-being were not significant in the younger population.

“A number of particularly relevant observations can be derived from our results,” researchers wrote. “First, fruit and vegetable consumption by secondary school pupils showed a linear pattern of association with mental well-being scores, such that those consuming five or more portions had higher well-being than those consuming three or four, who in turn had higher well-being than those consuming one or two. Second, consumption of energy drinks by secondary school children as a substitute for breakfast was associated with particularly low mental well-being scores, even lower than for those children consuming no breakfast at all.

“Third, the associations of nutritional variables with mental well-being are already apparent in the younger children, which is a concern.”

References

Hayhoe R, Rechel B, Clark AB, Gummerson C, Smith SJL, Welch AA. Cross-sectional associations of schoolchildren’s fruit and vegetable consumption, and meal choices, with their mental well-being: a cross-sectional study. BMJ Nutr Prev Health. Published online September 27, 2021. doi: 10.1136/bmjnph-2020-000205

Higher fruit and veg intake linked to better mental health in secondary schoolchildren. News release. BMJ. September 27, 2021. Accessed November 5, 2021.