Eating fruits, vegetables makes you more attractive, study says

Eating lots of fruits and veggies may not only improve your overall health, but may actually make you more attractive, a new study has found.

Fruit and vegetables are rich in red-yellow pigments called carotenoids, which guard against cell damage from pollution and UV rays and can prevent age-related disorders like heart disease and cancer, the Times of India reported.

Researchers from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland monitored the fruit and vegetable intake of 35 people over a six-week period and measured skin color changes. In a separate experiment, they investigated how attractive people found the skin color changes associated with the increased intake of fruits and vegetables, according to ABC News.

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Researchers found that redness and yellowness in skin increased as more fruits and vegetables were consumed, according to U.S. News & World Report.

They also found that the skin pigment changes may be viewed as healthier and more attractive, according to ABC News.

Eating an average of 2.9 more portions of fruit and vegetables a day made participants look healthier when rated by others at the end of the study, while an extra 3.3 portions enhanced their attractiveness, the Daily Mail reported.

The team, who studied white and Asian volunteers, planned to explore whether this is valid for other races too, and whether it has a smaller or greater effect in older people, as the volunteers were all aged 18 to 25, according to the Times of India.

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The study has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.