How do diet and mental health influence one another? It turns out there’s a lot of connections, especially when a person may already be dealing with food insecurity or a condition like depression or anxiety. It’s not unusual for a nutrition specialist to notice a client struggling with potential mental health challenges, or for a mental health specialist to be concerned that a patient is facing food insecurity. However, without the proper training and resources, it can be tough for professionals in either field to know how to best serve their clients.
“We see people who work in mental health spaces wanting to give nutrition advice, but they’re not sure what to say, and we see people in nutrition noticing mental health issues and wanting to help,” explains Grace Shearrer, assistant professor of family and consumer sciences at UW.
Shearrer, who is also a faculty member in UW’s neuroscience program, interacts with professionals in both fields on a regular basis. Searching for ways to better integrate mental health and nutrition in practice, she and Mandy Marney, director of UW Extension, helped launch the Western Region Mental Health and Nutrition Network (WRMHNN) in 2023.
Funded by the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the network connects specialists in fields related to mental health with specialists in fields related to nutrition. The goal is to address food and nutrition insecurity in tandem with mental health challenges.
As co-chair of the WRMHNN steering committee, Shearrer helped organize the network’s first annual conference, bringing together more than 60 experts, including researchers and extension personnel from each state in the western U.S.
Attendees identified the following areas as key to building the network’s foundation and impact:
- Professional development and training;
- Community-based programs to be delivered through university extension offices and other organizations;
- Standardized metrics to better compare mental health and nutrition studies;
- Analysis of existing research on the suicide epidemic.
Shearrer encourages mental health professionals, nutrition experts, extension personnel, and community members to engage with the network. To learn more, visit www.wrmhnn.org. For more information, contact Shearrer at gshearre@uwyo.edu.
This article was originally published in the 2024 issue of Reflections, the annual research magazine published by the UW College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources.
