My Food & Mood: Evaluation & Feasibility of an online dietary intervention for mood

Why is this important?
We, and now others, have shown improving diet quality through a Mediterranean diet leads to reduced depressive symptoms in clinical depression compared with a social control2. Large scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are required to confirm these findings. This evaluation and feasibility study is examining how best to motivate people with low mood to engage with an online dietary program and achieve dietary change.

How are we doing this study?
With very limited funding. We have designed, developed, filmed and built all the components of this project ourselves.

We have an online program at myfoodandmood.net and a smartphone application. We screen people online and if they meet our criteria we give them access to the program for 8 weeks.

During and after the program we ask them about their experiences with the program and also their diet and mood. We also examine a lot of engagement metrics from the platforms our participants are using to see which parts of the program are most popular

What are we hoping to find?
We are hoping to create a really motivating and effective program that can be used in online trials, like BeNEFIT to further test the relationship between food, mood and mental health.

Results from this study
This project completed in 2021 and the results have been published in the following manuscripts

Young CL, Mohebbi M, Staudacher HM, Kay-Lambkin F, Berk M, Jacka FN, et al. Optimizing Engagement in an Online Dietary Intervention for Depression (My Food & Mood Version 3.0): Cohort Study. JMIR Ment Health. 2021 Mar 31;8(3):e24871. PMID: 33787501. doi: 10.2196/24871.

Young CL, Mohebbi M, Staudacher H, Berk M, Jacka FN, O’Neil A. Assessing the feasibility of an m-Health intervention for changing diet quality and mood in individuals with depression: the My Food & Mood program. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2021 May;33(3):266-79. PMID: 34039236. doi: 10.1080/09540261.2020.1854193