Relationship between diet and mental health in children and adolescents: a systematic review.
O'Neil A, Quirk SE, Housden S, Brennan SL, Williams LJ, Pasco JA, Berk M, Jacka FN. (2014) Am J Public Health. 10 e31 - 42; doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302110.
We systematically reviewed 12 epidemiological studies to determine whether an association exists between diet quality and patterns and mental health in children and adolescents;
9 explored the relationship using diet as the exposure, and 3 used mental health as the exposure.
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 and some evidence for the reverse.
When including only the 7 studies deemed to be of high methodological quality, all but 1 of these trends remained.
Findings highlight the potential importance of the relationship between dietary patterns or quality and mental health early in the life span.