Food and mood ⏲️ 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I’m Sam.

And I’m Rob.

When someone feels sad or in a bad mood,

they often try to feel better by eating their favourite food…

I usually go for a peanut butter sandwich myself.

Do you have a favourite comfort food, Rob?

Hmm, maybe a cream chocolate éclair…

Comfort food is a type of emotional eating –

eating lots of food because we feel sad, not

because we’re hungry. But unfortunately, most

comfort food is high in carbohydrates and sugar

and, after a few minutes, it leaves us feeling even

worse than before.

Today, scientific research into the relationship

between what we eat and how we feel is growing.

In this programme we’ll be investigating the

connection between our food and our mood.

We’ll hear how healthy eating makes us feel

better, and of course, we’ll be learning some

new vocabulary as well.

Great! But first I have a question for you, Sam

People who link what we eat with how we

feel make a simple argument: the food you

eat supplies nutrients and energy to the brain,

and the brain controls our emotions.

Now, that might sound simplistic, but the brain is a

vital link in the connection between food and

our mood. So, Sam, my question is: how much

of the body’s total energy is used up by the brain? Is it:

a) 10 percent, b) 20 percent, or c) 30 percent?

Hmmm, that's a good question. I’ll say it’s a) 10 percent.

Right. Well, I’ll reveal the answer later

in the programme. Emotional eating is

often caused by feelings of depression,

anxiety or stress. Chef Danny Edwards,

who has suffered with depression, works

in one of the most stressful places imaginable -

a busy restaurant kitchen. BBC World Service

programme, The Food Chain, asked Danny

about his eating habits at work:

Actually, when you’re working in a kitchen

environment for long periods, your appetite

can become suppressed because you sometimes

don't want to eat, or you don't feel like you can

stop and eat, and all of that. So, it very often is

grabbing something on the go which obviously,

as we know, is not great for us… So you go for something

that’s quick, so hence why a lot of chefs have quite a bad diet.

Even though he’s surrounded by food, Danny

says that working under stress actually decreases

his appetite – the feeling that you want to eat food.

In a busy kitchen there’s no time for a sit-down meal,

so Danny has to grab and go – take something quickly

because he doesn’t have much time, although

he knows this isn’t very healthy.

So when even chefs have a difficult relationship

with food, what about the rest of us? Professor Felice Jacka,

is an expert in nutritional psychiatry. She studied the effect of

eating a healthy diet – food such as fresh fruit and

vegetables, wholegrain cereals, and olive oil – on people

suffering depression. Professor Jacka found that the patients

whose mental health improved were the same patients who

had also improved their diet.

But Professor Jacka’s ideas were not

accepted by everyone. Here, she explains to

Jordan Dunbar, presenter of BBC World Service’s,

The Food Chain, about the opposition her study

faced from other doctors:

So I proposed to do this for my PhD study, and everyone

thought I was a bit bananas, you know, and there was quite a

bit of, I guess, eye rolling maybe. I'm not surprised by that

because the discipline of psychiatry

was very medication and brain focused. What did people say

in the field? Were they sceptical? Oh, hugely sceptical

and sometimes very patronising. But this again comes from the

fact that general practitioners, psychiatrists, medical specialists

get almost no nutrition training through all those years of study.

When Professor Jacka investigated the link between food and

mood, her colleagues thought she was bananas – a slang

word meaning silly or crazy. They rolled their eyes – a phrase

which describes the gesture of turning your eyes upwards to

express annoyance, boredom or disbelief.

Other colleagues were patronising – they behaved towards her

as if she were stupid or unimportant. Professor Jacka thinks

this is because most doctors have little or no training about

nutrition and the effect of food on mental health. But her

ground-breaking research, named ‘The Smile Trial’, has been

successfully repeated elsewhere, clearly showing the link

between eating well and feeling good.

So, the next time you’re feeling down and your brain is calling

out for a donut, you might be better eating an apple instead!

And speaking of brains, Sam, it’s time to

reveal the answer to my question.

Yes, you asked me how much of the body’s energy

is used up by the brain. And I guessed it was ten percent…

Well, I’m afraid you are wrong. In fact, around

20 percent of the body’s energy goes to feeding the brain,

even though it only makes up two percent of our total body

weight. OK, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learned from our

discussion about emotional eating - that's eating too much food

because of how you feel, not because you’re hungry.

Appetite is the desire to eat food.

If you grab and go, you take something quickly

because you don’t have much time. Calling someone bananas is

slang for silly or crazy. If you roll your eyes,

you move your eyes upwards to show you feel annoyed, bored or

don’t believe what someone is telling you. And finally, if

someone is patronising you, they speak or behave towards you

as if you were stupid or unimportant.

That's the end of our programme. Don’t forget to join us

again soon for more topical discussion and useful vocabulary

here at 6 Minute English. Bye, everyone!

Bye!