March 20 is International Day of Happiness - Eat Your Fruits and Veggies!

Contributing Author: Gentle Heron

Tomorrow, the International Day of Happiness (March 20), is a great time to begin adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet. What’s the connection?

A study by researchers from Australia and the UK, published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, found that eating more fruits and vegetables may make you happier.

You can read about the specifics of that study, “Evolution of Well-Being and Happiness After Increases in Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables,” and decide for yourself.

The researchers looked at longitudinal food diaries (lists of everything a person eats) for three years from more than 12,000 Australians of all ages.

They found that life satisfaction and happiness increased with each additional daily serving of produce people ate. The greatest positive change in life satisfaction occurred for those individuals who changed from eating less than one portion of produce a day to more than eight. The change in their life satisfaction was equivalent to the gain in psychological well-being that they would have obtained from changing from unemployment to employed status.

Another great thing about the benefits of including more fruits and veggies in your meals is that these results happen quite a bit more quickly than do most physical health benefits from improving your diet.

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