Sep 23, 2014 01:57 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Fruits and vegetables could be as good for your mental wellbeing as it is for your physical health, according to a recent study.

Researchers from the University of Warwick found that high and low mental wellbeing were consistently associated with an individual's fruit and vegetable consumption.

Low mental wellbeing is strongly linked to mental illness and mental health problems, but high mental wellbeing is more than the absence of symptoms or illness; it is a state in which people feel good and function well. Optimism, happiness, self-esteem, resilience and good relationships with others are all part of this state. Mental wellbeing is important not just to protect people from mental illness but because it protects people against common and serious physical diseases.

"The data suggest that higher an individual's fruit and vegetable intake the lower the chance of their having low mental wellbeing," Saverio Stranges, lead author of the study, said in a statement. "Along with smoking, fruit and vegetable consumption was the health-related behavior most consistently associated with both low and high mental wellbeing. These novel findings suggest that fruit and vegetable intake may play a potential role as a driver, not just of physical, but also of mental wellbeing in the general population."

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from 14,000 people in England aged 16 and over. This included detailed information collected on mental and physical health, health related behaviors, demographics and socio-economic characteristics.

"Mental illness is hugely costly to both the individual and society, and mental wellbeing underpins many physical diseases, unhealthy lifestyles and social inequalities in health. It has become very important that we begin to research the factors that enable people to maintain a sense of wellbeing," Sarah Stewart-Brown, co-author of the study, said in a statement.  "Our findings add to the mounting evidence that fruit and vegetable intake could be one such factor and mean that people are likely to be able to enhance their mental wellbeing at the same time as preventing heart disease and cancer."

The findings were published in the journal BMJ Open. 

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