Obesity Health Risks

Nutrition and Depression: Is Your Diet Affecting Your Mood?   by Nancy Travers

Today, people are divided on the treatment of nutrition. There appear to be two major camps among us: those of us that care, and those of us who do not. This is not to say that those of us who do care about nutrition are any better off than those who do not. There is a dichotomy of people wrapped up in a world of no-carb, slow-carb, South Beach diets, Atkins programs, Weight Watchers and others who live drive-thru window to drive-thru window, with only the occasional salad to re-acquaint us with vegetables. In the grand scheme of the American diet, very few of us are receiving all of the nutrients in the quantities that our bodies require.

We all know that nutrition can affect our weight, muscle tone, and physical wellness, but few of us stop to consider that the way we eat can affect our moods and mental wellness too! Recent studies have begun to explore the connection between nutrition and an individual’s risk for depression. While we have no conclusive evidence that this is true, we have seen a strong correlation between the increase of sugar and the increase of depression, as well as the decrease of vegetable consumption and the increase of depression.

Before we even delve deeply into how nutrition can effect depression, we can examine common nutritional imbalances that are known to worsen our moods:

â