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Is diet a way to reduce the high prevalence of [self-imposed] anger among Finnish women (and some Finnish men)?
This pressing question has emerged due to a number of reports, and also some incidents I have suffered from.
The backstory. For many years, I was a performance coach and head of education, using psychology to improve athletes performance, as well as teaching prospective coaches ro improve athletes performance. In particular, I used goal-setting (Locke et la. 1981; Locke and Latham, 2002, 2019; Railo, 1983), that is, intentional prospective thinking (Atance and O'Neill, 2001, 2005; Barkley et al. 2001; Gilbert och Wilson, 2007; Gallister, 2017; Kaku, 2014; Liu et al. 2017; Moulton and Kosslyn, 2009; Pluck, Cerone and Villagomez-Pacheco, 2023; Schacter och Addis, 2007; Suddendorf, Bulley, and Miloyan, 2018) to improve athletes performance.
In 2003, just after star-psychologist Daniel Kahneman (1934 – 2024) had received the Swedish Riksbankens prize in Economy in memory of Alfred Nobel for the work he and Amos Tversky (1937 – 1996) had done on natural stupidity, I was recruited to the only fully financed position as a PhD – candidate at a faculty of Economy and Business administration. Part of the assignment was to tutor established researchers on methods.
2005 – 2008, I was also assigned the responsibility to develop and implement a 40 hour doctoral course about work and organizational psychology for future leaders in the academy, especially leadership, decision making, organizational learning, entrepreneurial thinking, which is about the “knowledge structures” that people use to make judgments and decisions that involve the evaluation, creation and growth of opportunities (Cacciolatti och Lee, 2015; Mitchell et al. 2002; Österberg, 2012), and social creativity for problem solving.
In 2007, That course was exported to the University of Helsingfors, and became a 20 hour course at an introductory level. I traveled every year until 2018 with my family to Helsingfors to conduct the week- long course at the University of Helsingfors.
In 2018, I was recruited to be a research leader at UH to investigate the prospect of Finland's food production from a perspective of entrepreneurial thinking (Österberg, 2021 a).
Due to acting prime minister Sanna Marin and her cabinet's decision to ignore the experts and lock down parts of Finland. It was an attempt to stop the Sars-Cov (2) virus which, if it travels through our species, may cause Covid 19, I wrote a piece about probability and how to lead in times of crisis (Österberg, 2021 b).
On top of that, I published a paper with a colleague on how dancing will increase idea generation, a marker for social creativity (Österberg and Köping Olsson, 2021).
My research reached global interest. But not all people at the faculty were happy with my research approach. At the start of the project, when I said that I would start by taking a look at nutrition, the head of the department objected, claiming that nutrition was Mikael Fogelholm's, and I quote, territory.
Dr. Fogelholm is a well known figure in Finland. That is partly explained by the fact that state media almost exclusively allow him to speak his mind about nutrition. Over the years Dr. Fogelholm has warned the Finns of the dangers of eating saturated fats and meat, which he claims will cause heart issues and colon cancer respectively. The paradox: he knows that these claims have been rejected (Österberg, 2025 a).
During spring 2019, I published a popular science article on my University blog: Nutrition psychology. What is the future for Sustainable food? The case for prospective thinking (UH) where I emphasize the importance of consuming a food matrix of micro nutrients that resonated with the diet our ancestors adapted to million years before the present (Österberg, 2019).
In August of 2019, I invited Fogelholm to a coffee meeting, so that we could have an academic conversation.
For years before that, I have had the habit of having conversations with colleagues around the world for the same purpose.
Dr. Fogelholm responded by suggesting lunch, which I thought was great! But during the lunch, I met an angry Fogelholm who said that all the research I mentioned was just shit (verbatim).
On January 23 2020, Fogelholm's boss, the head of the department who employs him, invited me to open their seminar series about food and nutrition. As my approach was nutrition psychology, I chose the headline - What’s the Prospect of sustainable Food? The Case for mental health, where I reiterated the importance of eating a food matrix of at least 30 micro nutrients on a regular basis (Österberg, 2020).
And after several briefings with my financier about the results, during the summer of 2020, I received an advance notice of 400,000 euros for another three years of research.
I also had meetings with project managers at conference center Hanaholmen, to conduct a conference with me and another person discussing climate related issues.
When the dean during fall of 2020 was informed about the advance notice of 400,000 euros for another three years of what people thought was good research which would be beneficial for Finland and the university, she called for a meeting. She planned the meeting in the midst of January 2021. Three people were invited: the head of the department, my group manager, and the HR-specialist. After the meeting with the dean, I spoke to each of them, and they all gave the same testimony: the dean had stated that she will refuse to sign an employment contract with my name on it.
Since the start of my assignment as a research leader at the University of Helsingfors, I had established a good relationship with rector Jari Niemelä. We didn't meet for coffee, but on occasion we met IRL or mailed each other to exchange information.
After the three testimonies, I contacted Dr. Niemelä and asked if he could evaluate my research? (I did not disclose the testimonies about the dean's decision).
Dr. Niemelä accepted, and he concluded that I was one of the top researchers at the university of Helsingfors.
When I told him about what the three people had testified, Dr. Niemelä said about the dean:
– I will have a talk with her.
A few days later, he wrote to me that she would be glad to help me but at the moment, I did not have any research money.
During August, October, and December 2021, I got invitations to give talks about my research:
- for ~1000 researchers at Verghese Kurien Centre of Excellence, Inst of Rural Man Anand, India.
- International Dairy Federation's (IDF) Global Dairy Conference. Copenhagen, Denmark.
- Aristoteles University, Thessaloniki.
This was followed by a number of reports, each of which indicated that Finland has severe issues:
- Finnish women's relational aggressiveness (psychological domestic violence) is the big challenge (Helsingfors Police department, April 6, 2022).
- Too many Finnish school kids fail reading comprehension and numeracy (Ministry of education and culture, May, 2022).
- Finland has the highest rate of Alzheimer in the world (Österberg, 2022).
- 20% of Finnish kids and young born 1997 or later, have mental issues (Elina Pekkarinen, Finland's child commissary, November, 2022).
- Swedish-speaking Finns have better health and live longer (Researchers at the city of Helsingfors, February, 2023).
- Twice as many people per capita die of Alzheimers'/dementia compared to Sweden (EU/OECD, 2023).
- Finn's physical and mental health has deteriorated since 2010 (KELA/FPA and THL, April, 2023)
- 20% of the Finns who die, die of Alzheimer's/dementia. In comparison, in neighboring Sweden, that number is 10% (EU/OECD, 2023).
- The research at the University of Helsingfors has collapsed (Bäckgren, 2023).
Link to source. - 40% of the Finnish school kids are victims of psychological domestic violence (Estlander, Bensow, November, 2023).
- In late 2023, I suffered from a second exclusion ((psychological violence?) after receiving a [verbal] message from the project managers at Hanaholmen said that the female managing director – Gunvor Kronman – refused to cooperate with me. The implication: they broke our agreement and years of planning was put to a halt.
- 50% of all Finnish women, and 30% of all Finnish men over the age of 45, are predicted to contract a serious brain disease (they mean Alzheimer/dementia) (Finnish Brain Foundation, September, 2024 (In context (Österberg, 2024):
“Almost one in five Finns dies of memory loss – there is no cure – yet”.
“One in two women and one in three men over the age of 45 will develop a serious brain disease during their lifetime”.
Link to source. - Entrepreneurship and innovative thinking has hit rock bottom (Atte Jääskeläinen, Sitra, December, 2024).
- Too many Finnish school kids fail reading comprehension and numeracy (Ministry of education and culture, April 1, 2025).
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I suffered a third exclusion when Henrika Backlund, who describes herself as the general for Swedish sports in Finland, banned me, the expert, from attending a seminar (Österberg, 2025 b).
- I suffered from a fourth exclusion when Maj Estlander, managing director at Bensow, also banned me, the expert, from attending the 2025 edition of Bensow's conference about children's rights (Österberg, 2025 c).
- Finnish Times published an article about soaring mental health diagnosis in Finland:
Link to source.
The study Finnish Times referred to (Suokas et al. 2025), concluded the following:
“Most, though not all, individuals experience at least one type of mental disorder, often during youth. Capturing the overall occurrence of mental disorders requires including both primary and secondary care data”.On July 7, the administration at the University of Helsingfors posted this:
“An estimated 77% of women and 70% of men will be diagnosed with a mental health, behavioral, or neurodevelpmental disorder during their lifetime.
The disorders are most often diagnosed for the first time: In women between the ages of 15 and 19, most often as anxiety and mood disorders, and in men as early as the age of 6, often as developmental disorders (e.g. ADHD)”.
Link to source.
I believe that this anger, marked by lack of accepting experts, and lack of cooperation, seem to typically manifest among Finnish women to a greater extent compared to Sweden for example, is explained by malnutrition (Österberg, 2022, 2023).
Malnutrition leads to lower level of testosterone, a hormone which regulates social hierarchy-thinking in men, and cooperation in women (Eisenegger et al. 2009; Eisenegger, Johannes Haushofer, Ernst Fehr, 2011).
Which food will increase testosterone levels?
According a summary concluded by Chat Gpt:
While few meta-analyses compare individual foods head-to-head, consistent findings support a dietary pattern such as:
Whole eggs (provide cholesterol substrate)
Oysters (zinc-rich)
Leafy greens (magnesium, flavonoids)
Legumes (zinc, magnesium)
Lean fish (protein, vitamin D, omega‑3)
Aggregate expert reviews recommend these foods in the context of:
Sufficient fat intake (vs. low-fat diets)
Adequate micronutrients (zinc, magnesium, vitamin D)
Whole‑food, minimally processed diets like Mediterranean or balanced omnivorous patterns
One reference about fat: (Whittaker and Wu 2021).
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