You’re in west dining commons and you stand close while you wait for them to put out a fresh batch of cookies. As soon as they do, you reach for them, bowl already in hand. Personally, I take at least two, and no more than four. Everybody knows what it’s like to choose unhealthy foods over healthy ones, and feeling bad about it later, especially when it comes to west cookies. I always think, it’s just two cookies, what’s the harm? But as I thought about it, I usually eat those cookies up to three times a week. That adds up pretty quickly. This got me thinking about how food not only affects our physical health, but also our mental health.

Emerging research suggests a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders. “Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain,” said Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and physiological science. One thing that Gómez-Pinila focuses on is Omega-3 fatty acids (found in salmon, walnuts and kiwi fruit) which provides many benefits, which includes improving learning a memory and helping to fight against mental disorders.

In an Australian study, 396 children between the ages of 6 and 12 who were given a drink with omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients (iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamins A, B6, B12 and C) showed higher scores on tests measuring verbal intelligence, and also learning and memory after six months and one year than a control group of students who did not receive the nutritional drink.

In a study published September 21, 2011, 3040 Australian adolescents aged 11-18 years were measured on diet and mental health which was collected by self-report and anthropometric date by trained professionals. There were cross-sectional relationships identified between measures of both healthy and unhealthy diets and scores on the emotional scale, where higher scores mean better mental health. Improvements in diet quality were mirrored by improvements in mental health over the follow-up period (does not support the reverse causality hypothesis). This study shows the importance of diet in adolescence, since common mental health problems first manifest in adolescence. This shows how important a healthy diet is during adolescence, and also throughout your life.

Now this doesn’t mean that you can never have another cookie or chocolate bar in your life. Everything is in moderation. Having bad food available everywhere makes it harder to make the right choice, but think of this next time you reach for your favorite junk food.