Summary: Fruit and vegetable consumption and exercise make people happier, not the other way around, a new study reports. Increased happiness was associated with eating more fruits and vegetables in women and exercising more in men.
Font: university of kent
New research led by the University of Kent and the University of Reading has found that eating fruit and vegetables and exercising can increase levels of happiness.
While the link between lifestyle and wellness has been previously documented and frequently used in public health campaigns to encourage healthier diets and exercise, new findings published by the Journal of Happiness Studies show that there is also a positive causality between lifestyle and life satisfaction.
This research is the first of its kind to disentangle the causality of how happiness, fruit and vegetable consumption, and exercise are related, rather than generalizing a correlation.
The researchers, Dr Adelina Gschwandtner (Kent School of Economics), Dr Sarah Jewell and Professor Uma Kambhampati (both from the University of Reading School of Economics), used an instrumental variable approach to filter out any effects from happiness to lifestyle.
It showed that it is rather the consumption of fruits and vegetables and exercise that make people happy and not the other way around.
The findings demonstrate that people’s ability to delay gratification and apply self-control plays an important role in influencing lifestyle decisions, which in turn has a positive impact on well-being. Research also shows that men seem to exercise more and women eat more fruits and vegetables.
Given that it is well known that lifestyle diseases are one of the leading causes of ill health and mortality worldwide, and that the UK has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe, these findings could have implications. significant for public health policy.
Dr. Gschwandtner said: “Behavioral nudges that help the planning ego reinforce long-term goals are likely to be especially helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If a better lifestyle not only makes us healthier but also happier, then it’s a win-win situation.”
Professor Kambhampati said: “There has been a bigger shift in recent years towards healthier lifestyle choices. Establishing that eating more fruits and vegetables and exercising can increase happiness and offer health benefits is an important step forward. This can also be useful for policy campaigns around the environment and sustainability.”
About this research news on diet, exercise and happiness
Author: olivia miller
Font: university of kent
Contact: Olivia Miller – University of Kent
Image: The image is in the public domain.
original research: Open access.
“Lifestyle and life satisfaction: the role of delayed gratification” by Adelina Gschwandtner et al. Journal of Happiness Studies
Summary
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Lifestyle and life satisfaction: the role of delayed gratification
This paper considers the impact of two lifestyle measures, fruit and vegetable consumption and exercise, on individual well-being.
Since lifestyle is likely to be endogenous, we corrected for it using two dimensions of delayed gratification as instruments.
The ability to delay gratification allows people to place greater importance on the investment component of lifestyle decisions than on the mere affective component.
Our analysis is based on UK Society Understanding data, covering 40,000 UK households over time.
We find both instruments of delayed gratification to be positive and significant in influencing lifestyle. At Stage 2, we find that fruit and vegetable consumption and sports activity increase life satisfaction, although the impacts vary for men and women.
These results are strong across all income quartiles, regions, gender, education, and age groups.
