Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to promote eating well to help prevent depression.

Public Health England (PHE) promotes a healthy balanced diet based on the Eatwell Guide for maintaining general health and wellbeing and for reducing the risk of diet-related diseases, such as heart disease. It does this through a variety of communications including the Government’s 5 A Day campaign, PHE’s catering guidance, the Change4Life and One You social marketing campaigns and the NHS.UK website.

PHE does not promote any dietary measures specifically to prevent depression as the evidence linking diet and mental health is not strong.

PHE’s social marketing campaign ‘One You’ provides tips, tools, support and encouragement to help improve both physical and mental health.