Mental Health and Nutrition
1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children suffer from some form of mental illness. Many opinions regarding a person's self-worth stem from body image related emotions, causing long term issues. Food and nutrition not only addresses potential health problems relating to excess calories in the diet, and insufficient micro-nutrients, but can also relate to energy levels and hormones.
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NutriBro can assist with mental health nutrition education to help improve mood, behaviour change techniques to manage healthy body weight, and can sign-post to the relevant experts in cases of serious mental health illness.
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"Notably, essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids are often deficient in the general population in America and other developed countries; and are exceptionally deficient in patients suffering from mental disorders". - Lakhan & Vieira, 2008. Nutrition Journal.
Depression and Foods
Recovering Omega-3 fatty acid levels has been used to successfully improve depression and deficiencies in various nutrients such as B12, zinc, folate and selenium are correlated with depression. - Bodnar & Wisner, 2005. Biol Psychiatry.
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There is a relationship a poor quality or unhealthy diet and depression in children. - Khalid et al., 2016. British Journal of Nutrition
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The Mediterranean diet provides protective effects from depression independent of age. - Psaltopoulou et al., 2013. Annals of Neurology.
Body Dismorphia
66% of adolescents are unhappy with their body image, which is significantly associated with unhealthy nutritional status in girls. - Pelegrini & Petroski, 2010. Human Movement. Although this can lead to a minefield of psychological motivations and conditions, overweight women are 11 times more likely to be unhappy with their body image than normal-weight women. If a nutritional strategy can help this situation, then an online nutrition coach from NutriBro would be willing to provide one.
ADHD and Diet
A comprehensive search of the scientific literature on ADAH returned promising results from nutritional interventions. There were associations found between people being ADAH and having deficiencies in certain fatty acids, zinc, magnesium and iron. - Zukier et al., 2010. Canadian Mental Health Association.
These authors and others have also aligned the body's genetic immuno-response to food additives potentially causing inflammation and oxidative cellular stress. This means nutritional solutions could provide low-cost safe therapy for sufferers. - Verlaet et al., 2014. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Anxiety and Nutrition
In a multi-location office and corporate setting, a nutrition program was shown to improve anxiety levels, (and depression) in overweight workers. The diet was a healthy vegan approach over 18-weeks. Significant improvements were also seen in general health, productivity and a reduced chance of being off work from illness. - Agarwal et al., 2015. American Journal of Health Promotion.
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Other authors outlined in a systematic review have shown Magnesium, Lysine, and multi-vitamin tablets to alleviate symptoms of anxiety too. - Lakhan et al., 2010. Nutrition Journal.
Macro-Nutrients - Protein, Fats, Carbs
The evidence suggests that non-pharmacological solutions to mental health problems are available. This is not to say it will definitely work, but the cost and lack of side effects mean it is worth considerable effort with guidance from a professional nutritionist.
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Generally, a healthy diet has shown positive effects on mental health, whereas a bad diet is correlated to higher levels of mental health issues. Emotional eating or binge eating can be part of a very unhealthy cycle involving food obsession or food fixation.
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Understanding macro-ratios, % Carbs vs % Protein vs % Fats, and caloric portion sizes are fundamental to mental health nutrition. We promote intuitive eating and a mindful approach to food.
The Complete Nutrition Solution - CNS
The CNS combines every aspect of nutrition and daily life to make small meaningful changes to your approach to weight loss.
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With complete support in terms of goal setting and motivation, then with assistance shopping, cooking, eating out and at work, this solution incorporates the environments where the traditional 'diet culture' has been shown scientifically to fail.
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The nutrition coaching and counselling from a registered nutritionist gives you the best possible chance at transforming for lifelong results.
Get in contact for an online nutritionist and to join the program.