What you eat is how you are

Have you heard of the phrase "you are what you eat"? I remember being told this over and over by the elders to persuade me to stop eating junk food. How much they succeeded in that is a matter of debate of course. 

What they meant by the phrase was that I need to eat healthy to stay healthy, physically. I learnt it to be true in school. But what they usually don't teach in school is that what we eat also affects our mental health. And what you eat can predict how healthy you might be mentally. 

My friend Nikhil has provided a comprehensive writeup explaining how diet and depression are more closely related than you might think. However, the effects of diet are wide-ranging. According to O'Neill et al. (2014), there exists a significant, cross-sectional relationship between unhealthy dietary habits and poor mental health in children and adolescents. They also found the corollary to be true. Currently, about 20-25% of young people worldwide suffer from mental disorders (Patel et al., 2007), with the number estimated at around 7.39% in India (Gururaj et al., 2016). Such a high prevalence of mental health issues among the youth might be attributed to their unhealthy dietary patterns to a certain degree. 

I believe all of us have been victims of our elders trying to feed us homemade food, while we would be shouting and crying to go eat out, probably have a pizza or a Chinese platter. But, they might be right all these while. Traditional diets keep us healthy physically and emotionally. Changes in traditional diets is associated with a decline in mental health, characterised by increased rates of depression, seasonal affective disorder, anxiety, and suicide (McGrath-Hanna, Greene, Tavernier, & Bult-Ito, 2003). The fact that migrants and sojourners find it distressing to accommodate to the new culture to move to is very well-known. Could a change in dietary patterns play a role in the development of the distress? Might be. 

How does a traditional diet maintain good mental and physical health? Well, traditional diets are usually balanced, with a good amount of fruits, vegetables, unprocessed grains, meat, fish, and seafood. Such a diet increases the concentration of good bacteria in our gut. These good bacteria aid digestion and also control mood and emotions through a unique signalling process (MD, Nutritional psychiatry: Your brain on food 2020). 

I am certainly not advocating giving up junk food once and for all. But, maybe we can all try to regulate the amount we ingest in order to live a happy and fulfilling life. 

References

Gururaj, G., Varghese, M., Benegal, V., Rao, G. N., Pathak, K., & Singh, L. K. (2016). NIMHANS Publication No. 130. Bengaluru: National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, 2015-2016.

Mcgrath-Hanna, N. K., Greene, D. M., Tavernier, R. J., & Bult-Ito, A. (2003). Diet and mental health in the Arctic: is diet an important risk factor for mental health in circumpolar peoples? - a review. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 62(3), 228–241. https://doi.org/10.3402/ijch.v62i3.17560 

MD, E. S. (2020, March 31). Nutritional psychiatry: Your brain on food. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/nutritional-psychiatry-your-brain-on-food-201511168626. 

O’Neil, A., Quirk, S. E., Housden, S., Brennan, S. L., Williams, L. J., Pasco, J. A., … Jacka, F. N. (2014). Relationship Between Diet and Mental Health in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Public Health, 104(10). https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2014.302110 

Patel, V., Flisher, A. J., Hetrick, S., & Mcgorry, P. (2007). Mental health of young people: a global public-health challenge. The Lancet, 369(9569), 1302–1313. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(07)60368-7