Snacking and Mental Health

A common trend that I have noticed in both my own eating habits, as well as those of my peers, is snacking. In the food journals, I noticed that there were not very many large meals that were eaten during the day; rather, both I and my classmates consumed snacks at many different points of the day. I have always wondered if this habit had any sort of adverse effects on my general health and wellness, or if it caused my digestive system to work differently because of this habit. This is a trend known as snacking and Dr. Andrew P Smith addresses this trend in his article “Snacking Habit, Mental Health, and Cognitive Performance.” In his piece, Smith discusses different studies that were done to evaluate the effects of snacking on mental health and cognitive performance.

            Smith cites four different studies, done by both him as well as other researchers. In each of the studies, the same tests are done on the subjects, but different age groups are used each time. The age groups were as follows: sample of the general population ages 20-60, a sample of individuals in their late teens living at home, a sample of people ages 18-30, and finally an elderly sample aged 65+. The studies were done over a span of five years, from 1998 to 2003, with most of the studies being done in 1998 and 1999. The studies looked at how snacking affected mental health and cognitive performance by measuring the test subjects on a few different tests. For mental health, they looked at the Beck depression inventory, emotional distress, and state anxiety perceived stress. For cognitive performance, they looked at free recall (number of words recalled), logical reasoning speed, logical reasoning accuracy, and sustained attention. However, through all of these different tests, there was not enough significant evidence that showed that snacking has any effect on mental health and cognitive performance. The data was inconclusive in showing a trend between snacking and mental processes. Instead, this study showed an unintended result.

The researchers found that most of their subjects snacked very often. The categories of snacking were broken up in to never, once or twice a week, most days, and every day. The researchers found that most of their test subjects fell into either the category of most days or every day. This shows a general trend in the population that we are moving more towards a snacking culture rather than sitting down and having a few large meals a day. This confirms the observations that I made about my classmates own eating habits and a trend that I have noticed within society as a whole. Even though there wasn’t enough evidence to show a direct correlation between snacking and mental processes, I noticed from the data that there was a general improvement in results as snacking increased. Furthermore, the test results showed positive results as a whole, showing that snacking doesn’t have bad effects on mental health.

Overall, the study did not show conclusive results of a trend between snacking and mental processes. There was not sufficient enough data to come to that conclusion. There may have not been enough test subjects to come to this conclusion or maybe there were other errors within the study. I believe that this is a valid hypothesis that snacking has an effect on mental processes and that a potential study in the future would be viable. This study already showed there were minor improvements in mental health and cognitive performance due to snacking, and they certainly didn’t get worse because of the snacking, so by my evaluation, keep snacking.