Eating meals alone is more strongly associated with unhappiness than any single factor other than having a mental illness, research has found.
People who always eat by themselves scored on average 7.9 points lower than the national average on an index tracking happiness, compared with someone who always eats in company.
Having a mental health condition had the strongest negative association with wellbeing. Those who reported a condition such as anxiety, depression, panic attacks or compulsive behaviour scored 8.5 points below the average figure, which was 60.7 out of 100. The average considers a range of factors.
Other issues had a much smaller association with unhappiness. Participants with limited physical mobility scored 5.4 points lower, for example, while people with a learning disability scored 3.7…
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