Fruit, vegetables and exercise can make you happier

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In a new study from the University of Kent, researchers found that fruit and vegetable consumption and exercise can increase levels of happiness.

While the link between lifestyle and wellbeing has been previously documented and often used to encourage healthier diets and exercise, the new findings showed that there is also positive causation from lifestyle to life satisfaction.

This research is the first of its kind to unravel the causation of how happiness, the consumption of fruit and vegetables and exercising are related.

The team showed that it is rather the consumption of fruit and vegetables and exercising that makes people happy and not the other way round.

Findings demonstrate that the ability of individuals to delay gratification and apply self-control plays a major role in influencing lifestyle decisions, which in turn has a positive impact on wellbeing.

The research also shows that men appear to exercise more, and women eat more fruit and vegetables.

With it being well known that lifestyle diseases are a leading cause of ill health and mortality worldwide, these findings could have strong implications for public health policy.

The team says there has been a bigger shift in recent years for healthier lifestyle choices.

To establish that eating more fruit and vegetables and exercising can increase happiness as well as offer health benefits is a major development.

If you care about mental health, please read studies about this mood function is low or even absent in people with depression and findings of new treatment could rapidly reduce depression symptoms.

For more information about mental diseases, please see recent studies about depression, anxiety and PTSD may not be mental diseases at all and results showing that scientists discover new treatment for depression, anxiety.

The study is published in the Journal of Happiness Studies. One author of the study is Dr. Adelina Gschwandtner.

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