In their piece for The Conversation, Scarlett Smouth, Katrina Champion, and Lauren Gardner describe their new research showing the impact of lifestyle changes on youth mental health:
“Our research, published today, tracked Australian high school students from 71 schools across New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Over time, improvements in sleep, fruit and vegetable intake, and exercise were associated with small but significant improvements in mental health.
The reverse was also true when it came to unhealthy behaviours like screen time, junk food, alcohol use and tobacco.
A comprehensive look at adolescent lifestyles
Our new study of more than 4,400 Australian high school students looks at a suite of lifestyle behaviours: sleep, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, sedentary (inactive) recreational screen time, fruit and vegetable intake, consumption of junk food and sugary drinks, alcohol use and smoking. . . .
Our research showed increases over time in healthy behaviours were associated with lower psychological distress. Conversely, increases in health risk behaviours were associated with higher psychological distress.
How much makes a difference?
On average, when looking at the change between year 7 and 10, every one-hour increase in sleep per night was linked to a 9% reduction in psychological distress.
Each added day of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week was linked to a 3% reduction in psychological distress. Each added daily serve of fruit or vegetables was linked to 4% lower psychological distress.”
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