Diet soft drinks and ready-made meals could make you depressed
It’s no news, of course, that a healthy and varied diet is good for you. Yet the emphasis is often on physical health, while mental health is at least as important. And what you eat has a particularly strong influence on it. Certain foods can make you feel very sad. More than that: depressed.
A recent study conducted by Harvard among a female target group demonstrated this once again. Extremely processed products and drinks, as well as sugar-filled sweets, could particularly contribute to depressive feelings.
Avoid these products for your mental health
This probably won’t come as a huge surprise, but all prepackaged snacks are genuinely bad for you — both for your body and your mind. Between 2003 and 2017, the researchers examined more than 30,000 middle-aged women. None of the participants had suffered from depression or depressive thoughts before the study. But by 2017, the difference was very clear: in the group that mainly ate ready-made products, 49 percent of the participants experienced more depressive feelings than those in the other group.
This included all ready-made foods, by the way: sweets, but also savory snacks and complete evening meals. Snacking also turned out not to be very healthy, because the group that ate nine or more times a day (which included a snack) experienced considerably more depressive feelings than the group that ate four times a day. I expected that it wasn’t necessarily healthy for you, but these figures still came as quite a shock to me.
This isn’t good for your mood either
There’s something else we’d be better off cutting from our diet, if we want to feel happy, that is: all diet versions of soft drinks. Perhaps you expected that too, but honestly, I was mainly familiar with the drawbacks that, for example, diet cola can have for your body — not that it could affect your mood so severely. But these artificial sweeteners are not good for your mind at all, even though it is not yet known why.
The researchers speculate that it is caused by a link between artificial sweeteners and certain molecules in the brain that influence your mood. Well, one thing is clear: from now on, preferably no more ready-made meals, but only fresh products. Your body and mind will be very happy about that.
Also read:
- Diet cola with your cheeseburger? Better not
- Do you know when drinking soft drinks is worst for you?
- Baking with sugar substitutes
Source: MentalFloss
