Week 5- Guest Lecture by Jack Cooper

Question 1

3 health behaviours linked to wellbeing in his studies

Answer 1

-Diet
-Sleep
-Exercise

Question 2

Sleep quality. How is this generally measured?

Answer 2

-Not the same as sleep quantity

• Quality sleep means waking up feeling rested satisfied, energized etc.

-Often measured using self report questionnaires because of it’s subjective nature.

Question 3

Link between sleep and mental health

Answer 3

• Sweet spot: both too much and little sleep =bad for wellbeing

Question 4

The fit bit study

Answer 4

-Ran from 2021-2022
- Participants wore a Fitbit (tracking their sleep and exercise) for 8 days while answering surveys regarding their daily;
- sleep quality (self reported and Fitbit reported)
- vigorous exercise (self reported and Fitbit reported)
- dietary choices (FV/processed foods consumption)
- wellbeing

Question 5

What was found in the fit bit study (generally)

Answer 5

-All 3 health behaviours were significant “withinperson” predictors of wellbeing!

Within-person=“on that given day, compared to your usual”

E.g. “Does doing 1 hr more exercise than
you normally do increase wellbeing”?

Question 6

Findings of Fitbit study for exercise

Answer 6

Doing more exercise than you normally do was
associated with increased wellbeing (up to a point)!

And then levels off

Question 7

Findings of Fitbit study for diet

Answer 7

Eating more FV than you normally do was
associated with increased wellbeing

Eating your usual amount of processed foods
was associated with increased wellbeing! Decreases and increases weren’t good. Probably because there is high comfort value in food so decreases is bad cause you still have the same stressors/ things to deal with in life but can’t use usual coping mechanism. On the other hand increases might be bad for wellbeing due to feelings of guilt after consumption or the fact that it had a bad physiological effect.

Question 8

Which had the greatest
association?

Answer 8

FV consumption= “Eating 1 standard serving of
FV was associated with a .86
unit increase of wellbeing”. .86 (highest association)

Processed foods
consumption
(quadratic) = Not so simple….
-.63

Vigorous
exercise = “Exercising for another 10 mins
was associated with a .61 unit increase of wellbeing”.
.61

Sleep quality = “Sleeping better by 1 unit was
associated with a .58 unit
increase of wellbeing”.
.58

Question 9

If fruits and vege had the highest association should you soley focus on improve this to improve health and ignore the other beahviours?

Answer 9

No, there does seem to be benefit to a holistic approach

All of the behaviours were significantly
associated with improved wellbeing and they all influence each other e.g. eating fruits and vege had the most effect on days where got the most sleep.