Hello kittens! I have returned after a week of taking a mental health break (refer to my first two blogs this semester) to bring you more mental health Mondays blogging that will hopefully equip you with the information you need to go out in the universe to research, understand, and apply what you learn, in the best way you possibly can. Today’s topic will be about one of the most essential things we need in order to live, thrive, and function: food! Specifically, how food affects our mental health and what we should try to eat or try not to eat in order to maintain a healthy physical and mental homeostasis.

Food is many things. It is what brings families and friends together for the holidays. It is what keeps you going through a long and stressful day. It is also what can comfort you after that day. It brings you joy, nostalgia, and sometimes it just does the job without doing much for the palette. With all these elements of culture, comfort, and emotion, food is really an important facet to our lives even though we may not think about it much often unless it’s really hitting the spot. Food in the realm of mental health can be a very sensitive topic, considering that “Body Dysmorphic Disorder affects 1.7% to 2.9% of the general population — about 1 in 50 people. This means that more than 5 million people to nearly 10 million people in the United States alone have BDD,” according to Katharine Phillips, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University, and Attending Psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Doctor Katharine also mentions that BDD is more common than anorexia and schizophrenia as well. There are a multitude of factors that may be causing this large statistic like unrealistic societal standards of beauty, unhealthy expectations of self, and toxic diet culture, as well as environments and genetic predispositions. To combat these factors that bring about negative effects to our health, we must look at the research done thus far to better understand what to do and how to approach living a healthy lifestyle overall.

“There is limited evidence regarding risk of depression associated with unhealthy dietary habits,” says Patricia Chocano-Bedoya, a visiting scientist in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Despite lack of evidence, she goes on to say, “There is consistent evidence for a Mediterranean-style dietary pattern and lower risk of depression.” Chocano-Bedoya points out in the Harvard Women’s Health Watch that there aren’t any particular diets that are known to cause depression but diets like the Mediterranean-style that are vegetable and fruit enriched have been found to lower risks which is a great preventative action through what we eat. She goes on to say “I would recommend an overall healthy, high-quality dietary pattern, such as a Mediterranean-style diet, not only for the potential to reduce depression risk but also for overall lower risk of other chronic conditions, which in themselves may later increase the risk of depression.” Killing two birds with one stone is what I would call this approach. By adopting this healthy eating style and instilling it into your life, you can then prevent chronic conditions which then prevent depression.  

It’s definitely easier said than done to make healthy eating choices but this doesn’t mean you have to only eat fruits and veggies and avoid all junk foods, sugary food, processed foods, and salty foods. At the end of the day, moderation is something that we might need, but once again, that might present itself as a challenge to those who struggle with binge eating. I myself have struggled with both obsessively counting calories and carefully watching what I eat to the point where I have lost an unhealthy amount of weight, and at the opposite end of the spectrum I have binge eaten so much food to the point where I would feel sick and have to vomit or have gained a lot of weight. Our relationships with food and our bodies are definitely interconnected and we must try our best to balance them and be kinder to ourselves. Eva Selhub, MD writes in Harvard Women’s Health Watch in her article Food and mood: Is there a connection?, “Start paying attention to how eating different foods makes you feel — not just in the moment, but the next day. Try eating a “clean” diet for two to three weeks — that means cutting out all processed foods and sugar. See how you feel. Then slowly introduce foods back into your diet, one by one, and see how you feel.” A cleanse can test our bodies to see what is affecting us negatively, so maybe we can substitute certain foods for something else or find a way to proportion our meals so that we aren’t consuming too much of a certain food group. I don’t subscribe to diet culture and I believe it does more harm than help but the purpose of a cleanse is to see what your body responds to positively and negatively. Doctor Eva continues, “When some people “go clean,” they cannot believe how much better they feel both physically and emotionally, and how much worse they then feel when they reintroduce the foods that are known to enhance inflammation.” Doctor Eva does bring up an important point, the surprising realization that people feel when certain foods are removed from their daily diets is the key to encouraging people to a healthier lifestyle. By showing people that there is a way for them to be physically and emotionally better is how we guide people to improve their bodily health, their self-image, self-confidence, self-worth and their overall mental health. 

Whatever you choose to take from this blog know that mental health and physical health journeys last a lifetime and are far from easy. Some people get the hang of it but then regress, others seem to find consistency. Whoever you are, I hope you can find your footing in this difficult food-body battle and come out victorious. 

Enjoy your week, kittens, and remember to be kind to your body and mind~

Resources

1. https://bdd.iocdf.org/professionals/prevalence/#:~:text=Body%20Dysmorphic%20Disorder%20affects%201.7,United%20States%20alone%20have%20BDD. 

2. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/food-and-mood-is-there-a-connection

3. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/nutritional-psychiatry-your-brain-on-food-201511168626