What is Mental Health Nutrition? 

The role of food in mental health is an evolving science. What do we currently know about mental health nutrition, and how can it be practically applied to individuals?

Let’s start with an important question. What is a healthy diet?

 

That’s a question that can, and is, debated at length. Well, on the internet and social media it is. In reality the enormous amount of data on nutrition and human health generally agree on a few key factors. These factors are with support global dietary guidelines, and while they can vary from country to country, they share several foundational features:

 

  •  consume fruits and vegetables, legumes, and starchy staples as the bulk of the diet;
  •  limit salt, sugar, and fat;
  • consume a diversity of types of food in appropriate proportions

 

These are broad nutritional concepts. From here, it’s often necessary to personalized nutrition based on the needs of the individual. This approach to healthy eating takes into account personal, biological, and social characteristics of the individual when making decisions about what’s best to eat.

 

What else determines a healthy diet? 

 

But there is more to it than just deciding what to eat. Social determinants also influence individual diet. Having regular access to fresh affordable food is connected to where people live and their socioeconomic status. When talking about healthy diet, it’s important to recognise any fundamental inequalities and how that might be impacting dietary recommendations.

 

Simply put, if people don’t have access to the food, or cannot afford the food, it’s not really an effective dietary recommendation. This is a reality for many people who want to support their mental health with food and nutrition. 

 

 

 Where it started 

 

When nutrition was first considered for its impact on mental health, it specifically addressed nutrient deficiency. This is when a deficiency in a particular nutrient resulted in symptoms or behaviour that looked like mental illness. In example, not enough tyrosine can cause symptoms of depression. However large scale research into the role of nutritional supplementation and mental health is still largely producing mixed results. Despite these inconsistencies, the use of nutritional supplements is endorsed in the treatment of mental illness. 

 

Food

 

Unhealthy diets are risk factors for mental illness, with the strongest evidence connecting food with depression and dementia. In order to conduct good quality research into the connection between food and mental health, a specific dietary pattern was outlined. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this one diet is better then another. If means that for a long time, the reasons nutrition research was so difficult to get a straight answer from was because of inconsistencies in individual dietary patterns. No one eats exactly the same, so it’s hard to compare. 

 

So, some of the best quality long term research studies were gathered and analyzed. The question asked: is there a specific way of eating that gives the best mental health outcomes? 

 

What they found is that eating in the Mediterranean dietary style had the biggest impact on reducing depression, as well as the easiest for people to stick to over the long term.  It was also discovered that the same dietary changes helped reduce symptoms of anxiety, even though this was not the focus of the research. This same research also found that while the Mediterranean dietary pattern did have the biggest impact, overall eating health also had a large positive effect on mental health. 

 

The food we eat can have a positive impact on our mental health. 

 

 

What we’ve learned in Australia

 

For a long time, research into mental health and nutrition focused on how mental health impacted food choices. Or, identifying when mental health issues happen at the  same time as food choices.  That’s interesting information, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us how food can impact food.

 

We know more now because of research conduced here in Australia.

 

One study provided food and cooking lessons to adults with major depressive disorder, and taught them how to cook in a Mediterranean style. The results found that the closer the people stuck to the diet, the more their depressive symptoms decreased. 

 

The next study was even more exciting in its results. This time, researchers split the group in half. One half received social support, and the other received nutrition counselling and advice. If you are interested in research, you can find the study here, it’s worth having a read as this particular study raised the bar for all research into nutrition and mental health.  You can also learn more about these findings at the Centre for Food and Mood at Deakin University. 

 

These research studies, and the ones that have followed (like this one here), have changed the way we address nutrition in mental health. We now know it is a bi-directional relationship. In one direction, mental health can impact food choices, that in turn impacts health. In the other direction, nutrition and diet had a direct and causal relationship with mental health. 

 

There are still limits 

 

While the news about nutrition and mental health is in my opinion fantastic news, there are some limitations that must be noted. Because of the complexities of food, food choices, and an individual’s nutritional needs it can be a challenge to understand exactly what the connection between food and mental health is. 

 

But we do know this

 

Food and nutrition in the form of a healthy diet improves mental health. The research out of Melbourne also found that it doesn’t have to be more expensive (the participants saved money on food). Providing support and education is more effective  than providing food, when it comes to lasting mental health outcomes. Changes that improve mental health are hard. Food is one of the easiest to change. The results to mental health from food based changes can also show results faster.  

 

Eating a healthy diet works in partnership with all other forms of mental health support, treatments, and interventions. Food changes do not have to happen separately. Nutrition and dietary changes are always be considered along side the other determinates of mental and physical health. 

 

This piece is adapted from a short excerpt from my dissertation: A Recommendation for the Inclusion of Nutrition Education in the Australian National Mental Health & Wellbeing Pandemic Response Plan. If you would like to know more about working with me and mental health nutrition, email me at kris@kristinepeter.com, or book a free initial appointment today.

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Kristine Peter
Kristine Peter