Mia's MessageBoard
Nutrition and Depression
When taking a holistic view of health and wellbeing, before making any behavioural or psychological interventions I look at things like sleep and diet. After 7 years of working with numerous children I can see a pattern with depressive symptoms and diet. There have been many scientific studies done that support the link between diet and depression:
‘We found evidence of a significant, cross-sectional relationship between unhealthy dietary patterns and poorer mental health in children and adolescents. We observed a consistent trend for the relationship between good-quality diet and better mental health’ – Source: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302110
‘The study found that all types of dietary improvement appeared to have equal effects on mental health, with weight-loss, fat reduction or nutrient-improving diets all having similar benefits for depressive symptoms .... just making simple changes is equally beneficial for mental health. In particular, eating more nutrient-dense meals which are high in fibre and vegetables, while cutting back on fast-foods and refined sugars appears to be sufficient for avoiding the potentially negative psychological effects of a 'junk food' diet’ – Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190205090511.htm
Helping your child to develop healthy eating patterns and eating a variety of vegetables and proteins is very important to their overall health and wellbeing. This, in tandem with a small amount of exercise daily, may prevent your child from developing depression.
Signs of depression in children
Children often find it difficult to explain how they’re feeling, especially if they’re experiencing depression. However, there are a few key signs and symptoms to look out for – particularly if they happen together over several weeks and are out of character for your child.
Children with depression may:
- have low energy and be difficult to motivate
- lose interest easily in an activity they usually enjoy
- have difficulty listening and concentrating on tasks
- make negative comments about themselves
- withdraw from social situations, not want to spend time with friends
- look for what’s wrong rather than see the positives in situations
- be very difficult to please
- be irritable, agitated, easily annoyed or upset
- seem sad and cry easily and be difficult to soothe
- either have no interest in food or overeat
- have problems going to sleep or staying asleep, waking early, or sleeping a lot
Because the symptoms of depression are often characterised by negative behaviour such as irritability or whining, it’s easy to feel annoyed and to blame or punish the child for their behaviour. This can result in other signs of depression being missed.
Mia Sartori - Student Welfare Officer