The Link Between Our Dietary Intake and Mental Health Essay Example

Your favorite foods may be causing your brain a lot of damage and the consequences can be irreversible. Our overall health depends on what we consume, if we practice bad eating habits, when we reach an old age, we will have to bear with the consequences of our bad eating habits. In the readings the authors explain how poor diet styles can cause anxiety and depression and how the quality of the food consume can be a significant factor in the development of mental health issues such as Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Poor diet style can be the root cause of anxiety and depression. Evidence states, “Diet is a substantial modifiable risk factor for the development of depression and anxiety [5]. Researchers have suggested a whole diet as an alternative approach to study the potential role of diet for prevention of disease.” A good diet is not only linked to your physical health, but it is also directly linked to your brain health. Our brain is what we eat, if we eat healthy our brain will most likely function at its best capacity and will prevent the development of anxiety and depression. Another piece of evidence suggests that “Dietary patterns have been previously linked to depression, anxiety, and stress but the evidence remains equivocal. A healthy dietary pattern characterized by vegetables, fruit, whole grains, monounsaturated fat, and fish has been associated with a reduced risk for depression, anxiety, and stress. In comparison, the prevalence of depression and anxiety has been previously linked to a Western dietary pattern rich in processed foods, SSBs, animal protein, and refined grains.” Everything that you consume will either benefit or damage your body. The body needs food to survive, and it will accept anything that you give it, but you must be mindful of the way that you eat and what exactly it is that you are eating. Don’t give your body the food that it wants, give your body the food that it needs to maintain itself and keep you healthy, because it is not only your body you are feeding, but you are also feeding your brain, and if you cause harm to your brain, it can bring serious health issues such as anxiety and depression. There is a growing number of research that suggests that high anxiety levels and depression symptoms are linked to an individual’s eating styles. This does not mean that every person that has a bad diet has brain problems, but there will always be significant differences between someone who eats correctly and someone who doesn't. 

The quality of the food we consume has dramatically diminished and can be a significant factor in the development of mental health issues such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Evidence in the book titled, Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power by Lisa Mosconi states that, “What many of us have only begun to grasp is that the actual health and quality of the foods we eat has dramatically diminished. Animals are routinely fed growth hormones, antibiotics, and genetically modified (GMO) feed, which we, in turn, ingest when we make a meal of them”. We are the only ones to blame for the downfall of our health in general. Too many harmful chemicals are used in order to grow our animals and our crops. These chemicals are in the food we consume, and these chemicals will go into our bodies and cause us significant damage that can be serious or even fatal to our brain and overall health. The combination of all of these chemicals will be diminishing to our brain health and extremely toxic and can be the leading causes of serious mental health diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s. More evidence cross sectional analyses journal says , “It is only in recent years that nutrition was granted scientific-field status, and diet has been acknowledged as a legitimate means of protecting ourselves against brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Little by little, scientists have come to appreciate the powerful connection between the foods we eat and our brain health. This very revelation has fostered a fast-growing body of evidence showing that we might very well be eating our way to dementia.” When we know what causes discomfort in our body, we immediately get rid of it. This is the same mentality we should have when it comes to our brain health and the types of foods we consume. We know that by consuming harmful foods we are damaging our brain, then we should stop eating these kinds of foods because it is the only way we will prevent the development of serious mental problems such as dementia, but aside from causing harm to our brain it highly affects our mood and a change in our attitude can affect those around us. There is a very close connection between the two and we should always be aware of what we feed ourselves because it is in the end what we are feeding our brain, the motor of our body.

In conclusion, food type and quality is not the only cause of our mental health issues but can definitely be one of them. In the book it says, “we need to recognize that the underlying causes of most forms of cognitive decline associated with brain aging, although sometimes partly genetic, are just as often linked to environmental and lifestyle factors like diet and exercise.” There are many other factors to take into consideration when speaking of the development of brain health and mental problems, but our diet style and food quality is a definite substantially influencing factor in the matter.  Our food may not be the only root cause of our health problems, but it can be one of them. The relationship between diet and mental health is extremely complex, there is still a vast amount of research to be done about the link between our mental health and our diet, but it does not mean that there isn’t a direct connection between the two because the research that has already been done suggests so. When you eat your next meal, think about how what you are about to eat will benefit one of the most important organs in your body, your brain.

Citations

Darooghegi Mofrad, Manije, et al. “The Association of Food Quality Index with Mental Health in Women: A Cross-Sectional Study.” BMC Research Notes, vol. 13, no. 1, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-020-05401-x. 

Meegan, Amy, et al. “The Association between Dietary Quality and Dietary Guideline Adherence with Mental Health Outcomes in Adults: A Cross-Sectional Analysis.” Nutrients, vol. 9, no. 3, 2017, p. 238., https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9030238. 

O'connor, Anahad. “How Food May Improve Your Mood.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 May 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/well/eat/mental-health-food.html. 

Mosconi, Lisa Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power. Avery Publishing, 2018.