Teen Mental Health 🧠 Depression, Anxiety, and Nutrition - Let's Break the Internet
Ultra-processed food is positively associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, eating disorders, and more pressing issues facing teens today.
Welcome to today, where teenagers are facing extremes from all angles without anyone sticking up for their good health, healing, and chance for joyful wellbeing.
During the 3-year wild ride of the global covid-19 pandemic, governments, health administrations, and public health organizations all agreed that we were witnessing a state of emergency with youth mental health, which many would have called the more deeply concerning pandemic to pay attention to, but I’ll let you add your thoughts to that conversation in the comments below.
Surgeon General Vivek Murphy calls youth mental health “the defining public health issue of our time.” I can’t help but agree. Research in 2019 discovered that teens who spent more than 3 hours a day on social media faced double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of depression and anxiety.
While the public likes to focus on aspects of culture and society on teen mental health, even eco-anxiety, and climate-anxiety, but these are beyond practicality for teenagers. One primary factor within our control that will directly impact our mental health is food.
Current epidemiological studies estimate that 1 in 7 (14%) adolescents experience mental health conditions, with depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders being among the leading causes of illness and disability.
Other estimates suggest that for the average teenager, ultra-processed foods comprise anywhere from 25-75% of their overall diet.
Enter ultra-processed foods: linked to depression, anxiety, and several chronic inflammatory conditions, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and more.
As I hope you know at this point, nutrition is one of the fundamental pillars of health and wellbeing.
In the Western world, we have access to an abundance of calories, but are void of authentic nutrition our body, brain, and spirit really need.
Do we not realize that kids and teenagers have NO chance at chasing their dreams if they are not rooted in nourished soils?
Do we not realize that we are allowing our young women to be exploited on Instagram, manipulated by the masquerade of marketing top models, pushed towards social anxiety and social media addiction by design?
Personally, I’m wondering what happened to first principles.
Whatever the hell happened to “You can be anything you want to be if you work hard and seek the wisdom and advice of others!”
Why aren’t we willing to protect our kids today?
I think it’s because we too are addicted and deficient in the willpower to take our lives in a healthier direction because we too are stuck in cycles of stress and addiction.
Let me explain.
In recent years, there has been an increasingly prevalent conversation by university professors and global health advocates for good nutrition as it can positively impact mental health status and be considered proactive and preventative treatment.
This should be intuitive to us as a species, but we’ve grown so far detached from our communal experience over the last 100 years that food and feelings, and connections between nutrition and mental health have become a novelty.
If you’re new to ultra-processed foods, welcome to the party. Ultra-processed foods are foods manufactured, not made by nature. They come in cans and bottles, plastic packages, bags, and boxes.
A brief list of ultra-processed foods includes the following:
Soft drinks
Sweetened juices
Sweet or savory packaged snacks (dessert popcorn or salty potato chips)
Chocolate, candies, and ice cream
Mass-produced packaged breads, buns, cookies, cakes, pastries, etc.
Margarine and other spreads
Breakfast cereals, granola bars, and snack bars
Prepared pies, pasta, pizza dishes
Poultry and fish “nuggets” and “sticks,” sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products and meat analogs
Powdered and packaged soups, noodles, snacks, and desserts
Moreover, ultra-processed foods often contain additive ingredients used to intensify their sensory qualities – making them edible, palatable, highly attractive, and habit-forming. Don’t even get me started on the Dorito Effect or Vanishing Caloric-Density.
We also have the many other layered concerns of ultra-processed foods such as the presence of microplastics, endocrine disruptors like bisphenol A (BPA) and more.
Whether it be addictive food or addictive devices, the results are the same - poor mental health.
One of the primary definitions of addiction includes the idea that the addictive habits drive behaviors that are negative results without the ability to alter behaviors despite knowledge of those negative effects. Certainly, we are in the age of addiction for many reasons. We have become an ultra-processed people and society.
Oh, and you don’t think for one second that big industrial food companies that spend millions of dollars a year to formulate addictive food and drink products to kids have anything to do with our wild rise in teenage eating disorders and mental illness?
Give me a break. How naïve can we really be?
But perhaps there’s a reason why we adults don’t have the galls to stand up for teenagers today..
Maybe, just maybe… hear me out on this…
We’re addicted to this stuff too.
Matter of fact, there are tomes of research and firsthand experience that suggests that we in fact are very much addicted.
The story is two-fold with dual drivers of disease.
When we are stressed, anxious, sad, or depressed, our brains have many years of a layered learned behavior that food can be the fastest way to relieve pain and receive a quick hit of dopamine.
In any of these distressed states, we tend to choose less healthy foods, more ultra-processed foods in particular that are exceptionally high in sugar, fat, salt, and chemical additives like concentrated sweeteners and MSG.
Yes, food affects how we feel. And how we feel influences the kinds of foods that our brains seek out in times of pain, anxiety, and depression. Similarly, our brains are more likely to seek our these highly pleasurable ultra-processed foods when we live life with poor quality sleep.
Enter today’s teenagers: Phone addiction. Chronically sleep deprived. Stuck with screen addiction and social media poking the brain at all hours of the day. Battling with hormonal roller coasters and social anxiety as they simply strive to fit in and identify their unique self simultaneously.
Teens today are suffering from a shameful battering of unnecessary and debilitating stressors from every influence of everyday life.
I’m telling you right now that sleep and food are the foundational drivers for kids’ poor mental health today. The evidence is clear:
Those who consume higher amounts of ultra-processed foods have been found to have higher levels of inflammation throughout the body, found in the gut, blood flow, and even neuroinflammation of the brain. Neuroinflammation has been linked to PTSD, ADHD, depression and anxiety.
Yes, you heard that right, essentially, eating more ultra-processed foods will make you sick.
Eating [ultra-processed foods] has been associated with anxiety, depression and cognitive decline. – New York Times
Diets high in ultra-processed foods have been linked to higher CRP, elevated liver enzymes, at higher risks for nearly all chronic diseases including but not limited to diabetes, obesity, cancer, fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease, autoimmune conditions, inflammatory bowel disease, and cognitive decline with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Did you know that around 60% of the calories that the average American consumes is sourced from ultra-processed foods?
It’s true.
What does the Research Suggest?
Teenagers today are suffering some of the worst mental health issues we have ever seen in this age group throughout history.
Furthermore, more kids and adolescents are developing metabolic disorders like diabetes, obesity, and fatty liver disease.
Guess what, Chris Palmer was right when he pointedly described these interrelated effects of food, nutrients, and mental health as metabolic disorders of the brain.
Research in Nature details that numerous pathways were identified through which diet could plausibly affect mental health. These include modulation of pathways involved in inflammation, oxidative stress, epigenetics, mitochondrial dysfunction, the gut microbiota, tryptophan–kynurenine metabolism, the HPA axis, neurogenesis and BDNF, epigenetics, and obesity.
According to New England Women’s Health, the top 5 health issues for teen girls today are the following: 1) Eating disorders, 2) Sexually transmitted disease, 3) Depression (I’ll add Anxiety here), 4) Pregnancy, 5) Obesity.
If we continue with our understanding that metabolic symptoms of brain and body are interlaced then we can clearly see that 3 of the top 5 issues are linked back to food and nutrition.
Here’s the real problem, which is a really big problem that no one seems to be addressing.
Teenagers today are suffering metabolic disorders of the brain.
I know that may sound like a highly provocative statement to make in the eyes and ears of the public square but it’s about time someone else says something.
It’s a shame that no one is willing to speak up on their behalf and protect the innocence of youth today.
According to UNICEF, an estimated 1.2 million adolescents die every year – mostly from preventable causes. Furthermore, self-harm is a leading cause of death for adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19.
“While adolescents have a better chance of improving their health and well-being now more than ever, many lack access to the essential information, quality services and protective environments they need to stay healthy and well.”
One study out of Brazil looked at consumption of common ultra-processed foods by teenagers and their self-reported frequency of five mental health symptoms in the last month.
The researchers found that nearly one in ten boys and 27.2% of girls reported almost always or always having at least four of the five mental health symptoms.
Yet another study out of Spain found that higher ultra-processed food consumption was associated with higher presence of depressive symptoms and poorer psychosocial functioning.
These researchers also suggest that “these findings are congruent with pre-clinical evidence that UPF components (i.e., nanosized particles contained in some additives, trans fatty acids, chemicals) impair several brain regions, including the hippocampus and the cortex, implicated in emotional processes.”
Research performed for the US population suggests similar trends, that ultra-processed food is positively associated with depressive symptoms, especially true for those individuals who exercise less.
How much more research must we fund and complete to tell us again and again and again the same things we already know to be true.
How long must we wait until we are ready and willing to make massive changes for the better of our children and society going forward.
Who’s to Blame?
I agree with the Guardian here, that we ought not to blame consumers. I mean for goodness sakes, we don’t want teenagers to do anything for their independence like vote, drive, or take risks. We encourage them to wear their seatbelts, but we let these big food and big tech companies destroy their mental and emotional health.
Your darling’s eating disorder is not her fault. It’s the system. Your teenage son’s battle with social anxiety and panic disorders are not his fault.
The biomedical framework for common mental illness is broken as well.
Enter conversations I’ve held in the past about nutritional psychiatry and mental illness being healed via nutrition. Unfortunately, many patients and families are never given a chance to know the truth.
For instance, did you know that research has found that for individuals who have been treated for bipolar disorder, suicide is the leading cause of death? Strangely enough, 48% of those deaths by suicide were by specifically overdosing on their medications.
Over the last several years, I’ve grown awakened and afraid of this broken and sketchy biomedical pharmaceutical swift script method of psychiatric care. It’s sad so many of these physicians never get a chance to learn the lessons rooted in functional and integrative psychiatry, ideas around nutritional genomics and specific deficiencies, or have heard the term “metabolic disorders of the brain.”
Ultra-processed foods negatively affect us in many ways: 1) dysbiosis and imbalance of bacteria in the gut microbiome, 2) high in sugar, fat, salt and low in nutrients, which drive inflammation, 3) typically high in blood sugar spiking quick carbohydrates, without fiber, amino acids, or healthy fats, which we know are key nutritional pathways to support in healing and preventing depression by lowering inflammation and decreasing oxidative damage.
Some have even gone so far to suggest that the Standard American Diet formulated of the West is one specifically unique in its ability to promote many inflammatory pathways in the body, showcasing downstream effects as various inflammatory diseases.
You see the things with standards of sick-care medicine in America today is that we have hundreds of inflammatory symptoms manifesting in a multitude of different ways, which big pharmaceutical companies seek to medicate for millions (and billions) in profit.
When in reality, we could take out most of these chronic inflammatory diseases by removing and eliminating ultra-processed foods from the diets of Americans.
Sadly, this is not the messaging you hear from the public health organization or that of the shamefully corrupted Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Far too many dollars and relationships have been shared between big food and big policy to believe we could actually design a better public health messaging campaign around authentic health.
The fact that our children are suffering, and no one is pointing to the giant elephant in the room is infuriating to me.
But then again, when most adults (and health physicians) in the room are just as addicted to these products as the teenage population, it’s no wonder no one can see beyond their rose-colored glasses.
Enter the skeptical anti-establishment physician, aka people like myself and those who’s footsteps I esteem to follow.
📚 I may be an RD/RDN but I am not an average dietitian. You see, I started questioning norms when I was a student in college.
🥇 Noteworthy Career Dietitians started publicly ridiculing me for being an advocate for functional medicine, root cause approach, and speaking out about public global health issues like 1) Glyphosate, 2) Roundup Ready Crops, 3) Aspartame, 4) Artificial Flavors / Sweeteners, 5) Industry ties to Ultra-Processed Foods Corporations like Coca-Cola & PepsiCo.
💥 I was attacked online & ridiculed as a student. I was flabbergasted by the lack of civil discourse on behalf of dietitians 20-40 yrs my senior.
Many chiropractors, naturopathic doctors, and other alternative health professionals would likely place themselves in this camp as well, being themselves champions of authentic holistic and natural health principles.
Unfortunately, these voices have been silenced and shadow banned since the time of Rockefeller [1, 2, 3].
It’s too bad TEDx didn’t want to hear the truth and validity of the talk performed by
on BPA, environmental toxins, endocrine disruptors within the scope of root cause environmental medicine. [Subscribe to her Substack:here]Unfortunately, many governing bodies for physicians today have been corrupted by big donors, lobbyists, and financial relationships that skew research and manipulate news and media to tell the stories they want people to believe instead of the truth.
Thankfully, "I believe in telling the truth more than I care about my own ego."
In a story coming soon, I’ll be sharing more about my personal experience with the establishment. It’s something I’ve not spoken about very much, but I started speaking up since I was a young student in university.
This won't be the first time I will write about these topics, and it certainly won't be the last, but I firmly believe that the everyday common consumer deserves to know the truth.
Some of those ideas we’ll discuss are the following:
World Health Organization decides to finally classify Aspartame as a possible carcinogen (welcome to the party WHO) 🙄 🌎
Why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA disagrees with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Aspartame 💸 💊 💸 💊 💸
Position Statement of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics on Aspartame ⚠️ 👀 🍬
Mutual Marketing Tactics Employed by Big Tobacco and Big Food: more similar that what you would think
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Receives Millions of Dollars from Big Food.
Coca-Cola has a long history of manipulating food and nutrition research and public health policy campaigns (International Life Sciences Institute)
The Corporate Capture of the Nutrition Profession in the USA: the case of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
This recent clip from Breaking Points News on how corporations corrupted the nutrition guidance in America.
More stories coming soon. Make sure you’re subscribed.
Do us all a favor and share this story with everyone everywhere you can.
Teenagers and their families deserve to know the truth.
We as a public consciousness need to collectively agree to take massive action to prioritize and protect youth mental health. We must improve structures and systems of nutrition, sleep hygiene, social media and technology, biomedical frameworks of psychiatry, and of course environmental medicine.
If you have a teenager yourself or know a family with a teenager, please share this story with them. My sincerest hope is that every family gains the access and opportunity to learn the truths of health and disease.
⁓ At the end of the day, we’re all in this together ⁓