Eating breakfast, fruit and vegetable intake and their relation with happiness in college students

Purpose Nutrition plays a major role in physical and mental health. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships between happiness and fruit and vegetable intake as well as eating breakfast in students. Methods In this cross-sectional web-based study, all students of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in Iran who attended course classes were invited to participate in the study. Five hundred forty-one students filled out the web-based questionnaire which included questions related to measurement of happiness, breakfast, fruit and vegetable consumption and socio-economic and demographic information. Analysis of covariance was used to assess the relationship between happiness and breakfast, fruit and vegetable consumption by adjustments for covariates. Results Measure of happiness was positively associated with eating breakfast, number of meals eaten daily and the amount of fruit and vegetable consumption (P values were < 0.001, 0.008, 0.02, and 0.045 respectively). Students who ate breakfast every day, more than 8 servings of fruit and vegetables daily, and had 3 meals in addition to 1-2 snacks per day had the highest happiness score. Conclusions Healthier behavior pattern was associated with higher happiness scores among medical students.