Can eating a healthy diet, which includes fruit, fish, and veggies reduce your chances of suffering from depression? Researchers in London have done research on over 3000 people for five years to test their theory. Amazingly or not, eating a healthy diet (no processed foods) showed test subjects with no signs of depression, but those that ate processed foods, such as processed meats, sweets, fried foods, high fat food products had harmful side effects on the subjects that lead to depression. This is not to say that a diet of just processed foods causes depression, but that the evidence is there to support the claim. Food that is not healthy for the body should be consumed in moderation. Proper foods, non processed items would be of a greater benefit to your overall health. You can also see in relationship to this that eating the wrong foods can lead to other issues. Obesity and heart disease to name a couple.Depression can eat away at your whole being. We are always hearing about the effects of eating a good healthy, balanced diet along with enough fiber in our system. Eating the wrong foods, processed items makes us sluggish and now can has an indication causing depression.
I know growing up and even now, I purchase processed foods! One is because it is cheaper (not a good excuse, but a true one) and readily available for consumers. Healthy alternatives such as fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive and at times hard to find. I grow a garden in the summer time because I am a lover of fresh foods during this time. I could just eat veggies and fruits in the summer. I try and freeze and can veggies when I can so we can eat on them throughout the winter months. There is nothing better than a home grown tomato.
My children (ages, 18 and 20) love all types of food. My oldest knows that when he eats junk/processed foods he is not at his best and feels worn down. Being in college and not around the best foods for you, he will opt for a healthy meal or a big salad with dark green leafy lettuce when he starts to feel the effects of the "wrong" food choices he has made. Our bodies have a way of letting us know what we should and shouldn't do. We seem or I seem to notice and not take part in doing my best at eating right a lot of times.
In our Psychology book we read about correlation and experiments in Chapter One. I like to think that this took place in gathering the data for this article. In Chapter Five it discussed the "learned helplessness" theory that we do not act upon or escape the situation or "bad" food choices we make. It is easier to pick up processed food, than to pick out good wholesome, nutritional food for our bodies. If we did spend the time and money on the good foods, our cells would be forever thankful and supply us with needed antioxidants and vitamins that we need to maintain a healthy life.
We are like Pavlov's dogs--if you dangle something in front of us long enough we will want it. Keep it there and we will gravatite to it more and more. A learned behavior! If we can just reverse that to the "right" choices, in this case, healthly foods, we might can steer clear of being depressed. Woof!
