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Nutrition and mental health

Reviewed by Robert Bogenberger, PhD

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What is nutrition?

Nutrition is the process by which we use food to nourish our bodies. When we eat nutritious food, we invest in both our physical and mental health.

There’s no one, set way to eat healthy that will work for all bodies. But many health, government, and scientific organizations do offer general guidelines for a balanced diet. These guidelines frequently change in response to new research.

The recommendations below are just one example of a nutritious diet outline for adults:1

  • Eat lots of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains
  • Limit or avoid added sugars
  • Try to eat avoid saturated fats
  • Avoid trans fats
  • Have less than one teaspoon of salt per day

How diet and nutrition affect mental health

Studies suggest that a nutritious diet can have positive effects on your emotions and mental health. Making healthy food choices tends to improve your mood, which in turn helps you continue to eat well.2

Can healthy eating cure depression?

Research doesn’t support the idea that healthy eating can cure depression. However, eating nutritional foods can help improve some symptoms.3 A healthy diet isn’t a cure-all for depression or any other mental health disorder, but it can be one important piece of a larger treatment plan.

Food and mood

While the relationship between mental health and nutrition requires more research, many studies suggest a strong relationship between food and mood. What you eat can affect your mood in both positive and negative ways. Not eating enough, or eating too much, can also affect how you feel.

Positive impacts of food

  • Eating well can help both your physical and mental health. One study found that the Mediterranean diet (which includes fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, fish, seafood, and olive oil) was correlated with reduced rates of depression and a lower likelihood of certain brain diseases.4
  • Nearly 95% of serotonin, a neurotransmitter associated with mood regulation, is produced in your digestive system.5 Foods rich in good bacteria may limit inflammation and help boost mood and energy levels.
  • The act of eating has both physical and mental health benefits in and of itself. Sharing a meal as a family, for example, has been shown to strengthen bonds, improve self-esteem, and lessen symptoms of depression and stress.6

Potential negative impacts of food

  • Foods that contain caffeine and sugar may temporarily boost your mood or energy. But their enjoyable short-term effects are often followed by a crash.
  • Hunger can strongly impact your mood. And the stress associated with chronic hunger can increase your risk for mental health disorders like anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).7
  • Eating disorders (such as restricting your food intake, binge-eating, purging meals, or obsessively focusing on “healthful” eating) can affect both your physical and mental health and make eating a source of stress or pain.

Barriers to healthy eating

Healthy eating isn’t accessible for everyone, especially in the US. People may face barriers including:

  • Poverty: Healthy meals are typically more expensive (and time-consuming to prepare) than less nutritious foods. Additionally, lower-income people may live in food deserts, lack clean drinking water, and face other accessibility challenges.
  • Discrimination: Discrimination can be a barrier to a healthy diet. For example, studies have shown that food deserts are more likely to exist in predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods than in predominantly White neighborhoods.8
  • Diet culture: According to the Boston Medical Center, each year roughly 45 million Americans go on diets and spend an estimated $33 billion on diet and weight loss products.9 Many of these diets do little to help people eat healthily, and they may actually encourage disordered eating habits.
  • Disability: Grocery stores and other food markets aren’t always accessible for people with disabilities.10 Additionally, some disabilities can make it physically difficult to eat, while other disabilities require medication or treatment that causes appetite loss.
  • Eating disorders: People with eating disorders may struggle to eat at all, let alone eat nutritious foods.
  • Other mental illnesses: Mental illness can make eating healthily (or eating at all) feel impossible. Appetite loss can be a symptom of some mental illnesses. It can also be a side effect of medication.

How diet culture affects physical and mental health

Diet culture in the United States is often unhealthy. It can affect the way people approach nutrition, and can harm both physical and mental health in a number of ways:

  • Diets only help you lose weight temporarily: Research shows that up to two-thirds of people who diet end up regaining more weight than they lost after just four or five years.11
  • Weight isn’t the only indicator of physical health: Losing weight is rarely a healthy goal on its own. Weight is just one factor in the larger picture of your overall health. Placing focus on weight over other measurements of health may actually create negative health patterns.12
  • Weight isn’t a sign of mental health: Diet culture supports the myth that thin people are happy and overweight people aren’t—but this isn’t true. Anyone can struggle with mental health issues, regardless of body size.

How to safely improve your nutrition

Strict diets aren’t the best method for ensuring your body is getting the nutrition it needs. Instead, it’s important to take intentional steps and create long-term patterns that ensure you are getting everything you need from what you eat.

Speak with your doctor

Before you make any big changes, speak with your doctor. They may need to adjust your medications to prevent unwanted or dangerous interactions with certain foods. They can also help you choose behaviors that protect and promote your health instead of focusing on unhealthy metrics like weight or clothing size. It is important to choose an approach that suits your specific health concerns instead of jumping on the latest fad diet.

Make changes slowly

Quitting certain foods cold turkey is rarely recommended. If you’d like to try eliminating certain foods from your diet, your doctor can help you create a safe plan to decrease them slowly, then slowly reintroduce them to evaluate their effects. A focus on healthy eating can sometimes evolve into a problem, so it’s important to be mindful and make changes with the help of professionals.

Seek professional help

Struggles with food can interfere with both your physical and mental health. Browse our provider directory to find a therapist in your area who can help you examine your relationship with food.

If you’re struggling with disordered eating and need immediate help, text “NEDA” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. You can also call the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline at 866-662-1235 to speak with a licensed therapist (available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST).

About the author

The editorial team at therapist.com works with the world’s leading clinical experts to bring you accessible, insightful information about mental health topics and trends.

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