In a sense, this isn’t a new question – our review of the literature went back as far as Epicurus, born more than 2,300 years ago – but our study tries to unravel the relationship between life satisfaction, eating fruit and vegetables and exercise. Life satisfaction has always been difficult to examine because of the problem of reverse causality: people who have better lifestyles may have greater life satisfaction, but it’s possible that they are making healthier life choices because they are more satisfied with life.
Delayed gratification
Understanding Society helped us here, because in Wave 5, the Study asked not only about fruit, vegetables and exercise, but also about delayed gratification. Specifically, people answered on a scale of 0-10 how much they agreed that they:
- would have a hard time sticking with a special, healthy diet
- have always tried to eat healthy because it pays off in the long run.
These extra components to measuring lifestyle are significant, because they allow us to avoid the problem of reverse causality. They will influence the consumption of fruit and veg, and exercise, directly but will only influence life satisfaction through the impact they have on fruit, vegetables and exercise.
We took several factors into account – gender, education, income, and age in particular.
What we found
Overall, eating more fruit and veg and doing exercise had a positive impact on life satisfaction. When we allowed for the possibility of delayed gratification, we found the effect of lifestyle was stronger. This could be because people saw these lifestyle elements as an investment in the future.
We found that women ate significantly more fruit and veg than men, but that men did more sports. Average life satisfaction scores were similar, with women just slightly higher. One significant difference, though, is that women are significantly more able to delay gratification than men when considering the long-term payoff of healthy eating. Women are also ahead on sticking to a diet, but here the gap is smaller.
People with a degree eat more fruit and veg and take more exercise than those without – and are more likely to say they have control over their lives and to be able to delay gratification than those without degrees. While physical activity generally increases life satisfaction, it has a smaller positive effect on those with degrees
People in the highest income quartile have greater life satisfaction than those in the lowest. However, once again, the effect of physical activity is smaller in the highest quartile than it is in the lower ones. The impact of exercise is greatest for those with lower incomes.
When it comes to age, the young (16-24 year olds) and the old (55-64) have higher life satisfaction than the middle-aged. Eating fruit and veg and sport both increase life satisfaction across the board, but for the young and old groups, the effect is smaller than it is for those in the middle.
Our conclusions
The association between lifestyle and wellbeing has been well documented, but this was the first study to directly link what you eat and the exercise you do with life satisfaction. We’ve shown that people’s ability to delay gratification and use self-control plays a major role in influencing lifestyle decisions, which in turn has a positive impact on wellbeing.
There has been a shift towards healthier lifestyles in recent years, and our finding that eating more fruit and vegetables and exercising can increase happiness, while also offering health benefits, is a major development. We know that diseases related to our lifestyles are a leading cause of ill health and mortality worldwide, and the UK has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe, so these findings could have significant implications for public health policy.
For example, both fruit and vegetable consumption as well as physical activity increase life satisfaction generally. However, we find that women are more likely to take up the former and men the latter. This could help to target interventions.
Behavioural nudges that help to reinforce long-term aims are likely to be especially helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle – and if a better lifestyle makes us both healthier and happier, that is clearly a win-win situation. Not only that, but it could prove useful for policy campaigns around environment and sustainability, too.
Authors
Adelina Gschwandtner
Adelina Gschwandtner is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Kent
Sarah Jewell
Sarah Jewell is Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Reading
Uma Kambhampati
Uma Kambhampati is Head of the School of Politics Economics and International Relations at the University of Reading
