Want to Feel Happier? Eat Yoghurt, Study Suggests

Amy Taylor November 20, 2015

Feeling blue? No need to go the extra mile to cheer yourself up. Just snack on plain low-fat yoghurt, scientists suggest.

A group of researchers from Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research in the Netherlands, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, found mood-enhancing benefits from eating vanilla and plain yoghurt.

The study involved 24 participants who were asked to eat yoghurt while researchers studied their emotional responses, including a new research method known as an emotive projection test to determine what effect the yogurts would have on people’s moods. The three participant groups were given pairs of yogurt to taste, each of which were the same brand and marketing, though they had different fat content or flavours.

Then, the researchers showed study participants photographs of other people and then asked them to rate the people on six positive and six negative rates.

According to the researchers, people project their emotions on to others, so their moods can be indicated through their judgment of others.

Their findings revealed that knowing a brand of yogurt didn’t affect the participants’ emotions, but the changes of the yogurt did. However, being pleasantly surprised or disappointed by the yogurt affected the participants’ moods.

The study also found that there was no difference in the participants’ responses to pineapple or strawberry yogurts, though lower-fat versions caused them to have more positive responses.

The most surprising finding was, according to the researchers, vanilla yogurt drew very strong positive responses from the participants.

This supports previous evidence that understated vanilla scents in hospital waiting rooms and other stressful places can reduce aggression and encourage relationships between staff and patients.

The study also suggests that this new emotive response method could be used as an effective way to gather information about a product before it goes to market.

The study was published in the Food Research International.