I called to ask Shari, my college best friend, to remind me what we mostly ate our freshman year. Oh, right. Cheeseless pizza, popcorn, all you can eat pasta, breadsticks, and salad on Tuesday nights for $5.99 at the local Italian place. Once we moved to our own apartment, we added in canned corn, beans, and tomato soup (pretty good!). Everything was fat-free. And then there were those pots of cinnamon-coffee she brewed to fuel those all-nighters. But what I remember most about our diet was our main health concern— the freshman fifteen.

We now know that weight gain — and diets full of processed and fried foods, refined grains, and sugar — can lead to inflammation of the gut and a consequent higher risk of mental health issues. Poor diet, on top of sleep deprivation, stress, alcohol and drug use, contributes to high rates of depression and anxiety. Most disturbingly, there is an increase in suicides on campuses across the US that could very well be related. Yet college students feel stuck with their food options. This is what I often hear from them: “There’s no time between classes to get to the dining hall.” “The vegetables look gross.” “It’s just a carb-fest there.” “I sometimes go out for a salad, but otherwise healthy food is hard to find.”

We need to make healthy options the norm. Diets loaded with veggies, fruit, meat, fish, and whole grains, like the Mediterranean diet for example, have a whole range of health benefits. New Nutritional Psychiatry research can now help to guide the way about what we eat. A first of its kind randomized controlled study, the gold standard in research, focusing on undergraduate students came out this month.

Researchers studied the effects of a 3-week healthy diet intervention on undergraduate students’ depressive symptoms by comparing two groups. One group completed a 3-week healthy diet program and the control group continued on their usual diets. The study proved that affordable, easy to prepare, nutrient-dense foods should be made available to students.

Researchers found that students’ depressive and anxiety symptoms were relieved when they followed the healthy diet compared to the control group. And these results stayed consistent for those who stuck with the diet for three months.  

The authors of the study believe that gut inflammation from a diet high in processed foods and sugar might help explain these results and report that three weeks was enough time for students to have experienced the benefits of lowering this inflammation. 

This study supports the findings of the only other randomized controlled diet trial to date called SMILES, which studied older adults, and shows how important it is that we allocate resources toward healthy food access and education.

By creating healthy habits early on, students and young adults can help to prevent and reduce mental health problems for the rest of their life. And yet there are significant challenges—cost, access, education— that we as a society need to tackle.

These were the daily diet guidelines for the healthy-diet group in the most recent study:

2 ½ cups of veggies

2-3 pieces of fruit

3 servings of whole grains (ex. a slice of bread, ½ cup oatmeal, pasta, rice, or one cup dry cereal)

3 servings of protein (lean meat, poultry, eggs, tofu, legumes) plus fish three times per week

3 servings of unsweetened dairy (ex.1 cup of milk or yogurt or 1.5 oz of cheese)

3 tablespoons of nuts and seeds

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of turmeric and cinnamon (most days) for their anti-inflammation effect

Decrease refined carbohydrate sugar, fatty and processed meats and soft drinks.

*Here are a few links for students to start eating healthier in dorms and dining halls, and on the go with backpacks. Totally doable, I promise.