The effect of the consumption of fruit and vegetables on psychological well-being

Abstract: This study analysis the partial effect of fruit and vegetable consumption on psychological well-being using data on 2,805 different individuals from the The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States. The regression is performed on eleven different variables for psychological well-being and includes re-gressors for fruit, salads, beans, other vegetables and the combination of these variables. The results show that there is a positive relation between the consumption of fruit and vegetables on four out of eleven variables; num-ber of days feeling anxious, tense or worried, feeling bad about oneself, feeling down, depressed or hopeless and having little interest in doing things. The results for the other seven variables are not significant. The variable for salad is significant in four out of eleven dependent variables where beans are only significant for one out of eleven and other vegetables are not significant for any of the dependent variables. The results for the fruit varia-ble are significant for three out of eleven variables while total vegetable consumption is not significant for any of the variables. The conclusion is that future research is needed to analyse the effect of fruit and vegetable con-sumption on psychological well-being, also focusing on the different aspects of fruits and vegetables. Further research recommendations are to conduct a controlled trial research.