Uticopa Blog

Our body's ability to metabolise food is complex and not widely-understood.  There are as many different types of metabolic-rate as there are, say, types of facial features.  If someone has inherited a poor bodily metabolic rate and then, foolishly, overeats to a marked extent as well - then we get the sort of extreme obesity levels one sees in places like the USA.  There's one particular family I know where the wife is obese, the husband skinny, the one son following the mother's shape, the other the father's. 

Yet, they all eat the same amount and type of food! 

Every day there seem to be yet more doctors telling us that what we eat is bad for us. Most related studies have in the past concentrated on how obesity and poor choice of food give undoubted risk to our cardiovascular system, leading to strokes and cancer.  However, a new Australian study has now shown a link between Western-style diets and mental health problems in teenagers.

The research paper, from Western Australia'sTelethon Institute for Child Health Research, has just been published online in the respected international journal Preventive Medicine.  Dr. Wendy Oddy, head of Nutrition Studies at the Institute, said the results were based on detailed analysis of diet records and behaviour checklists that were collected from more than 1600 Western Australian 14-year-olds in the Raine Cohort Study.

Here's what she had to say:

"Our analysis found that higher levels of behaviour and emotional problems were associated with a more Western-style way of eating, namely a diet high in takeaway foods, red meat, confectionary, soft drinks, white bread and unrefined cereals.We also showed that these problems were less among teens with a more healthy style of eating, specifically those who ate more fruit and vegetables.

"This suggests that if we want to reduce the high rates of mental health problems among young people, then improving their overall diet could be a good place to start."
What Dr. Oddy and her team did was assess the participants' food intake using a 212-item food frequency questionnaire. The Child Behaviour Checklist was used to assess mental health problems, such as withdrawn and depressed behaviour, together with their effects on outward behaviour, such as delinquency and aggression.

Dr Oddy said previous studies had shown that one in five children were expected to develop some form of mental health problem by the time they reached adulthood, and that 50% of all adult mental health problems developed during adolescence.

"We know that since 1985, children and teenagers have been increasing their energy intake by consuming more soft drinks and processed foods.

"The number of overweight adolescents has doubled and obesity has tripled in that age group. At the same time there have been marked increases in sedentary behaviour such as TV viewing and computer use," Dr Oddy said.

"Investigating factors that influence mental health in young people must be a high priority. These findings show that there is a need to look at the overall diet, rather than concentrate on individual nutrients."

Dr. Oddy's work is particularly interesting in that it shows how what we eat affects not just our physical health but our mental health too.  In showcasing young people, she has shown that these effects are evident from a younger age than previously thought.

Evidently, as we all know really, we all - irrespective of age - need to improve what we put in our bodies. 

We could do worse than spend time in a country like France - and look at their completely different approach to food, and even wealth.  A far greater proportion of their income is spent on buying and cooking high quality food.  Unlike the English, they don't spend a high proportion of income on luxury houses and cars and then take their children to McDonalds!

Until some future time when we all can go along to a health professional and pinpoint our exact level of food-metabolism so that we can then eat the amounts consistent with our own body's requirements, we could do a  lot worse than follow the lead of the French!