Does Eating Healthy Make you Happier or Does Being Happy Lead you to Eat Healthier?

The newly emerging field of positive psychology focuses on the positive facets of life, including happiness, life satisfaction, personal strengths, and flourishing. Research in this field has empirically identified many important benefits of enhanced well-being, including improvements in blood pressure, immune competence, longevity, career success, and satisfaction with personal relationships. Recognizing these benefits has motivated researchers to identify the correlates and causes of well-being to inform them in developing and testing strategies and interventions to elevate well-being. As positive psychology researchers throughout the world have turned their attention toward facets of food intake, a consensus is developing that the consumption of healthy foods can enhance well-being in a dose-response fashion. The link between unhealthy foods and well-being is less clear. Some studies suggest that fast food may increase happiness under certain conditions, though other studies demonstrate that fast food can indirectly undermine happiness. The positive impact of food consumption on well-being is not limited to what people consume but extends to how they consume it and social factors related to eating. Though the research suggests that our food intake, particularly fruits and vegetables, increases our well-being, this research is in its infancy. Research specifically focused on subpopulations, including infants and pregnant mothers, is mostly lacking, and the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between food consumption and well-being remain to be elucidated.

Enhanced well-being, including improvements in blood pressure, immune competence, longevity, career success, and satisfaction with personal relationships. Recognizing these benefits has motivated researchers to identify the correlates and causes of well-being to inform them in developing and testing strategies and interventions to elevate well-being. As positive psychology researchers throughout the world have turned their attention toward facets of food intake, a consensus is developing that the consumption of healthy foods can enhance well-being in a dose-response fashion.

The Emergence of Positive PsychologyResearch in many health-related fields, including medicine, neuroscience, and psychology, has adopted the medical model and focused on deficits, disease, and dysfunction. This focus has been pivotal in understanding and alleviating ill-being, but it has also led to a limited conceptualization of health and health care as primarily a reduction or absence of ill-being. Relatively recently, the concept of health has been expanded to include the promotion of well-being, which includes happiness, life satisfaction, and flourishing. The World Health Organization has endorsed this expansion as its mandate now reaches beyond only eradicating disease or infirmity, to include promoting well-being. This expansion is at the core of a complementary approach to psychology referred to as positive psychology. Positive psychology places well-being at the center of its field of study by elevating the importance of empirically understanding and promoting happiness, satisfaction, strengths, positive experiences, positive traits, and other facets of human thriving. The aim of positive psychology is not to

replace traditional psychology or view the focus of traditional psychology as exclusively negative. Rather, positive psychology’s mandate is to expand traditional psychology’s focus on what is wrong with people and how we address these problems, with a complementary focus on what is right with people and what evidence-based interventions we can employ to assist people to thrive and flourish.

The importance of positive psychology’s mandate is supported by research that empirically demonstrates many benefits associated with high levels of well-being. For example, increasing positive feelings may play a role in improving health,, as enhanced well-being is associated with lower blood pressure, increased immune functioning, and increased telomere length, though not all studies report this increase in telomere length. Additionally, longevity is positively correlated with well-being, and self-reports of high levels of well-being are associated with exceptional longevity and reduced mortality. In addition to health, well-being is associated with improved social relationships. This association may be bidirectional. Happier people report that their relationships are of higher quality, more satisfying, and stronger. In addition to health and relationships, work and school success are linked to well-being. For example, happier people are more likely to enjoy a greater career and academic success. Research suggests that well-being often precedes greater career performance.

The increased work and career success may be attributable to increased cognitive functioning including enhancement under certain conditions creativity in problem-solving following increases in well-being. The Relationship between the Consumption of Healthy Food and Well-Being. Given the many important possible benefits of well-being, and the finding that across cultures and countries people desire happiness, researchers have begun to explore factors and interventions that can enhance happiness, life satisfaction, and flourishing. Research from across continents has shown an emerging pattern that factors related to food consumption can enhance well-being. For example, university students self-reported their well-being along with aspects of their eating habits. Benefits associated with high levels of well-being and its components component of well-being Benefit ReferencesGreater positive emotions Lower blood pressure increased vigor and optimism Improved immune functioning Increased positive affect, life satisfaction, optimism Increased longevity Increased overall well-being, positive affect, life satisfaction, happiness, optimism enhanced career success, happiness, life satisfaction Improved social relationships increased happiness, resilience, overall well-being, positive affectImproved romantic relationships.