research topics about vegetarianism

85 Vegetarianism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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📍 Great Research Questions about Vegetarianism

🏆 best vegetarianism essay topics & examples, 📌 interesting topics for essays on vegetarianism, 👍 good vegetarian essay topics.

• What are the key types of vegetarians?
• How do you get animal proteins as a vegetarian?
• Why do some people hate vegetarians?
• What are the ecological benefits of vegetarianism?
• Is a vegan diet affordable for the middle class?
• What are the health benefits of eating meat?
• Are there any unsolvable issues regarding a vegan diet?
• What is the best vegetarian food?
• How do you deal with the risk factors of a vegetarian diet?
• What are some myths about veganism?
• Vegetarianism Health Benefits It is going to be argued that; Being a vegetarian is good for health since it leads to the prevention of obesity and overweight, developing strong bones, prevention of heart disease, having cancer protection, having […]
• Vegetarian vs. Meat-Eating While meat is a rich source of essential minerals and vitamins, it also results in many adverse effects to the human body.
• Why You Should Not Be a Vegetarian To conclude the above, it is important to note that vegetarianism refers to a form of food culture in which the individual eschews animal products.
• Vegetarianism and Its Causes The first cause to discuss is connected with economic reasons or the inability to include meat in everyday diet. Many vegetarians share the opinion that a meat-based diet is a sign of inhumanity.
• Vegan vs. Vegetarian Diets: Impacts on Health However, vegetarians have the option of consuming animal products like eggs and milk, but this option is not available to vegans; vegetarians tend to avoid the intake of all the animal proteins.
• Can Vegetarian Diets Be Healthy? The analysis of the effectiveness of such a nutritional principle for the body can confirm, or, on the contrary, refute the theory about the advantages of vegetarianism and its beneficial effect on body functions.
• Vegetarian and Non Vegetarian Healthier Diet The first and foremost is that a vegetarian diet is one of the best weapons that can be used against overweight and obesity.
• Benefits of Vegetarianism Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and in spite of enormous research efforts and many treatment options, there is still no guaranteed cure for the disease.anou and Svenson assert that in […]
• Vegetarian or Meat Eaters Contrary to the belief that meat is a great source of proteins, the quality of the protein in meat products is considered to be very poor since there is lack of proper combination of amino […]
• Vegetarianism Relation with Health and Religion These are the vegans, the lacto vegetarians, and the Lacto-ovo vegetarians. Apart from the explained contributions to health, vegetarian diets are also instrumental in checking blood pressure, aiding digestion, removal of body toxins and betterment […]
• Target Market for the “Be Fine Vegan Skin Care” To be competitive in the market and realize profits from the sale of the product “Be Fine Vegan Skin Care” in a competitive market, marketing executives analyze and design a market plan that is strategically […]
• Worldwide Vegan Dairies: Digital Marketing Of particular importance is the promotion of vegan cheese in Australia, where information technology is also developed and the culture of a vegetarian lifestyle is flourishing.
• The Impact of Vegan and Vegetarian Diets on Diabetes Vegetarian diets are popular for a variety of reasons; according to the National Health Interview Survey in the United States, about 2% of the population reported following a vegetarian dietary pattern for health reasons in […]
• Harmfulness of Vegetarianism: The False Health Claim According to the article “How vegetarianism is bad for you and the environment”, “Plant-based sources tend to be low in saturated fat, a component of the brain and a macronutrient vital for human health”..
• Health 2 Go: Vegan Waffles for Everyone All fruits and berries are purchased daily from local suppliers and stored in a contaminant-free unit of the Health 2 Go.
• City’s Finest as a Vegan Ethical Shoe Brand The brand is focused on authenticity and transparency, producing the shoes locally and sourcing recycled and reclaimed materials that combine the principles of veganism and sustainability.
• Vegetarian Consumer Behaviour Raphaely states that the advances in agriculture created a threat to the environment, and it is important to study this situation in an in-depth manner.
• Vegetarian Women and Prevention of Iron Depletion and Anemia Most of the body’s iron exists in hemoglobin, a quarter of the rest exists as metabolized iron-ferritin in the liver and the rest is found in the muscle tissue and selected enzymes.
• Soul Food: The Origin and Reasons of Vegetarianism This paper explores the origin, the performance of this practice, the solutions this practice offers to the challenges the Indian culture faces, and how vegetarianism reflects the values of the people.
• Ecological Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet The final level of the food sequence is carried out by organisms that help in the decomposition of the primary; secondary; and tertiary organisms back to the food flow by acting as nutrients and manure […]
• The Vegetarian Burger – A Product Review The burger also comes with significant nutrient components of Sodium and potassium.The total carbohydrate of the burger amounts to 6g which is 2% of the whole production unit.
• Vegetarian Diet and Proper Amount of Vitamins Issue This difference was accounted for by 14% lower zinc levels in the vegetarian diet and 21% less efficient absorption of zinc while eating it.
• Vegan Hot Dogs: Product Marketing The market for vegan hot dogs is a constantly growing market because the younger layer of the population is becoming more adherent to non-meat or vegan food sources.
• The Vegan Dog Kit Company’s Business Plan According to statistics, the number of vegetarianism in the United States is on the rise: as of 2018, five percent of the population adheres to a meatless diet, with half of them practicing veganism. Evidently, […]
• Pro-Vegetarianism to Save the Earth While most people agree that population growth is closely connected to the emission of greenhouse gases, which are harmful to the environment, as they lead to global warming, a rare individual believes that he or […]
• Moral Status of Animals: Vegetarianism and Veganism The significance of acknowledging the concept of sentience in this context is the fact that vegetarians and vegans accept the idea that animals are like humans when they feel something.
• Vegetarianism Among Chinese Customers This paper explores the reasons for the rise of vegetarianism among the Chinese. A cross-section of Chinese consumers is also motivated to abstain from meat products because of concerns about the infringement of animal rights.
• Consumer Behavior Theory: Vegetarianism If this philosophy is extrapolated to the vegetarianism trend analysis, the theory of reasoned action suggests that the rise in the number of vegetarians stems from people’s tendency to associate vegetarianism with good health.
• “Quit Meat” Vegetarian Diet: Pros and Cons Although many dieticians think that meat is an essential nutrient, the reality is that it is inappropriate to eat animals because it is unhealthy and unethical.
• Vegan Parents’ Influence on Their Children’s Diet The first reason why a vegan diet should not be imposed on children is that every parent should pay close attention to the needs of their toddlers.
• Vegetarian Diet: Pros and Cons On the contrary, the study A Comparison of Some of the Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Vegetarian and Omnivorous Turkish Females by Karabudak, Kiziltan, and Cigerim portrayed that vegetarians had higher risks of hyperhomocysteinaemia and lower […]
• Positive Reasons and Outcomes of Becoming Vegan Being vegan signifies a philosophy and manner of living that aims at excluding, as much as achievable, any kind of exploitation of, and cruelty against, animals for meat, clothing and other uses while promoting and […]
• Herb’aVors Vegan Drive-Thru Product Business Model As a result, the wide public will be able to receive the brand-new service with the excellent health promotion characteristics and traditional cultural implications of fast-food. The breakthrough of the offered concept is the vegan-based […]
• Vegetarian Groups by Motivation To understand the reasons underpinning the popularity of this movement, it is important to distinguish the triggers that make people turn into vegetarians.
• Vegetarianism and Health The doctors claim that vegetarian diets pose a threat to the health of women since they inflict menstrual disruption as well as infertility.
• Vegetarian Diet as a Health-Conscious Lifestyle Making a transition from omnivore to vegetarian lifestyle, besides the impact on the person’s health, people consider the public opinion and the community’s reaction on their decision.
• Vegetarian or carnivorous diet However, a diet rich in meat and animal products has been found to have severe detrimental effects to people’s health. A well balanced diet that incorporates both meat and vegetables is essential.
• Today’s Society Should Move toward Adopting Vegetarian Diet: Arguments For While it is hard for many people to reduce the necessity of eat meat-based products and to increase the use of vegetables and other vegetarian products, however, there is a necessity “to reconsider the increasing […]
• Vegetarianism Is Good For Many Reasons For Health, Ethics, And Religious
• Understanding What Vegetarianism Is and Its Dietary Limitations
• A History of Vegetarianism: Moral and Philosophy
• Vegetarianism and the Other Weight Problem
• The Environmental Necessity of Vegetarianism
• The Misusage Of The Vegetarianism In Teenage Females With Eating Disorders
• Determinants of Vegetarianism and Meat Consumption Frequency in Ireland
• The Dietary Concept of Vegetarianism and the Nutritional Intake
• Vegetarianism Is The Human Conception For Man ‘s Own Advantage
• Why Vegetarianism Is Good For You And The Planet
• Vegetarianism: The Key to a Health-Conscious, Ecological America
• The Significance of Cow Protection and Vegetarianism in Hinduism
• Relative Moral Superiority And Proselytizing Vegetarianism
• Determinants of Vegetarianism and Partial Vegetarianism in the United Kingdom
• An Analysis of the Three Important Aspects of Vegetarianism
• Negative Stereotypes of Vegetarianism
• Vegetarianism Versus Eating Meat
• The Effects Of Vegetarianism On Health And Environment
• A Description of Vegetarianism as a Way of Life For Many People For Centuries
• History And Philosophy Of Vegetarianism
• Vegetarianism – To Meat Or Not To Meat
• Arguments in Favor and Against Vegetarianism
• American Vegetarianism How It Became a Subculture
• The Benefits of Vegetarianism and Its Main Features
• The Health and Economic Benefits of Vegetarianism
• The Main Benefits of Vegetarianism and Its Importance
• Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism
• Why Vegetarianism Is Good For Many Reasons For Life
• The Hidden Politics of Vegetarianism Caste and the Hindu Canteen
• An Analysis of Vegetarianism as the Best Way To Save Animals Lives and Help the Environment
• Vegetarianism: Fighting the Addiction to Meat
• The Earliest Record of Vegetarianism in Ancient History
• Vegetarianism Is The Modern Diet Plan
• An Analysis of the Moral and Religious Reasons of Vegetarianism and Its Health Benefits
• Benefits Of Veganism And Vegetarianism
• Animal Rights Is A Cause For Vegetarianism
• Vegetarianism vs Veganism
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Health, environmental, and animal rights motives for vegetarian eating

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation University of California, Davis, CA, United States America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Roles Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis

• Christopher J. Hopwood, 
• Wiebke Bleidorn, 
• Ted Schwaba, 
• Sophia Chen

• Published: April 2, 2020
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Health, the environment, and animal rights represent the three main reasons people cite for vegetarian diet in Western societies. However, it has not been shown that these motives can be distinguished empirically, and little is known about what kind of people are likely to be compelled by these different motives. This study had three goals. First, we aimed to use construct validation to test whether develop health, environmental, and animal rights motives for a vegetarian diet could be distinguished. Second, we evaluated whether these motivations were associated with different demographic, behavioral, and personality profiles in three diverse samples. Third, we examined whether peoples’ motivations were related to responses to vegetarian advocacy materials. We created the Vegetarian Eating Motives Inventory, a 15-item measure whose structure was invariant across three samples (N = 1006, 1004, 5478) and two languages (English and Dutch). Using this measure, we found that health was the most common motive for non-vegetarians to consider vegetarian diets and it had the broadest array of correlates, which primarily involved communal and agentic values. Correlates of environmental and animal rights motives were limited, but these motives were strong and specific predictors of advocacy materials in a fourth sample (N = 739). These results provide researchers with a useful tool for identifying vegetarian motives among both vegetarian and non-vegetarian respondents, offer useful insights into the nomological net of vegetarian motivations, and provide advocates with guidance about how to best target campaigns promoting a vegetarian diet.

Citation: Hopwood CJ, Bleidorn W, Schwaba T, Chen S (2020) Health, environmental, and animal rights motives for vegetarian eating. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230609. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609

Editor: Valerio Capraro, Middlesex University, UNITED KINGDOM

Received: December 18, 2019; Accepted: March 3, 2020; Published: April 2, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Hopwood et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Pre-registration, methods, measures, scripts, and supplemental results for samples 1-3 as well as data for samples 1 and 2 are available at https://osf.io/52v6z/ . Data for sample 3 cannot be shared publicly because it is not owned by the authors. It can be requested at https://www.lissdata.nl . Preregistration, materials, and data for sample 4 are available at https://osf.io/9wre4/ .

Funding: Funding was provided to Christopher J. Hopwood and Wiebke Bleidorn by Animal Charity Evaluators ( https://animalcharityevaluators.org ). The funding agency advised on study design issues prior to data collection; all decisions about study design were determined by the authors.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Eating is an important day to day behavior at the interface of individual differences, social dynamics, economics, health, and ethics. Vegetarianism has emerged as a significant dietary movement in Western cultures [ 1 – 3 ]. The benefits of vegetarian diets include improved individual health [ 4 – 8 ], a more sustainable environment [ 4 , 9 – 11 ], and a more humane approach to inter-species relationships [ 12 – 19 ].

Health, environment, and animal rights also appear to represent the primary non-religious motives for a plant-based diet [ 1 , 20 – 24 ]. However, thus far there is very little evidence that these motives can be distinguished empirically, and no existing measures of eating behavior is available to measure health, environment, and animal rights as distinct motives for vegetarian diet. One consequence of this gap in the literature is that relatively little is known about the psychological implications of these different reasons for a vegetarian diet. Initial research suggests that extraverted and sociable individuals tend to be more motivated by health [ 25 , 26 ] whereas factors such as agreeableness, openness, altruism, and empathy may be more related to ethical motivations [ 27 , 28 ]. However, findings are often inconsistent, and a wide range of potentially important correlates have not been examined. Understanding these motives is important for advancing knowledge about this increasingly important behavior, and it may also have practical value in the area of advocacy.

Advocates for plant-based diets typically focus on at least one of these three motives when trying to convince people to adopt a plant-based diet or join a vegan organization [ 20 , 29 – 31 ]. Advocacy campaigns may be more effective to the degree that they target the specific motives of different groups and individuals [ 30 , 32 ] because people are more likely to respond to messages that target their personal needs and interests [ 33 ]. Moreover, focusing on issues that do not resonate with individuals’ motives may negatively impact animal advocacy, such as when the exposure to animal rights advocacy creates an unpleasant emotional reaction [ 34 ] that worsens opinions of vegetarians and animal advocacy [ 31 ]. Thus, it is in the interest of advocacy groups to better understand the kinds of people who are more or less likely to respond to activism that emphasizes health, the environment, or animal rights. From an advocacy perspective, it is particularly important to understand the motives to which non-vegetarians are most sympathetic, given that these are the individuals that are targeted by advocacy campaigns.

The goals of this research were to 1) evaluate the structure of common motives for a vegetarian diet, 2) to use that measure to develop behavioral and psychological profiles of people who would be most likely to adopt a plant-based diet for different reasons, and 3) examine whether this profile predicts responses to advocacy materials.

Motives for a plant-based diet

Many instruments have been developed to assess diet-related motives. Early work tended to focus on specific motives of interest for a particular research topic. For example, Jackson, Cooper, Mintz, and Albino [ 35 ] created a scale focused on eating motives in the context of substance abuse, which included four dimensions: coping, social motives, compliance, and pleasure. While this instrument outlines a useful model of psychological eating motives, it is less suitable for research on vegetarian diet because any of these four motives could lead a person to eat either vegetarian or non-vegetarian food, depending on other considerations.

Several instruments tap eating motives that are more likely to distinguish vegetarian from non-vegetarian eaters. The Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ; [ 36 ]) focuses on nine motives: convenience, price, health, sensory appeal, weight control, natural content, mood, familiarity, and ethical concerns. Renner, Sproesser, Strohbach, & Schupp [ 37 ] developed The Eating Motivations Survey (TEMS), a broad, multidimensional measure of 15 different motives including liking, habits, hunger, health, convenience, pleasure, tradition, nature, sociability, price, visual appeal, weight control, affect regulation, social norms, and social image. These multiscale measures provide a general taxonomy of individual motivations in food choice, but they do not distinguish the three core motives most central to vegetarian diets, and they include a variety of motives that are less relevant for plant-based diets such as mood or affect regulation.

Other measures have focused more specifically on ideological or ethical factors potentially more relevant to vegetarianism. Lindeman and Stark [ 38 ] created a measure with scales designed to distinguish ideological reasons, weight control, health, and pleasure. In a similar project, Arbit, Ruby, and Rozin [ 39 ] crafted the Meaning in Food Life Questionnaire (MFLQ), which has three dimensions, social, sacred (i.e., religious), and aesthetic, that are not relevant to our study, and two that are: moral (which could include animal rights and environmental motives) and health. Lindeman and Väänänen [ 40 ] set out to enhance the FCQ by developing four scales focused on ethical dimensions, including animal welfare, the environment, politics (e.g., human rights related to food production), and religion. However, in their study, the animal welfare and environment scales were so highly correlated that they collapsed into a single factor. Measures focused on ethical motivations for food choice begin to capture variation in motives that might be specific to vegetarian diets, but they tend to collapse different ethical concerns relevant to vegetarian diet into a single factor and don’t always include health. Indeed, distinguishing various ethical factors may be difficult in practice [ 21 , 41 , 42 ], as results from these studies also show that even when items are identified to distinguish moral from health-related motives, it is challenging to distinguish these motives in terms of external correlates. An important exception is the Dietarian Identity Questionnaire [ 2 ], which has scales designed to measure a range of dimensions that link dietary behavior to identity, including the emphasis an eater places on prosocial as opposed to moral concerns when making food choices. This framework has considerable promise for identifying the mechanisms underlying these different motivations for vegetarian diets (e.g., Rosenfeld, 2019 [ 43 ]), but it does not provide scales to directly measure health, environmental, and animal rights motives for a vegetarian diet.

Thus, the first step in our research was to use a construct validation strategy to test whether the three main reasons people might have adopted or be compelled to adopt a plant-based diet—health, animal rights, and the environment—can be distinguished empirically. Given ambiguities in the literature, we focused specifically on differentiating environmental and animal rights factors.

Identifying characteristic profiles of people with different vegetarian motives

Variables related to plant-based eating in general include younger age [ 44 , 45 ], being female [ 1 , 44 , 46 – 49 ], living in urban areas [ 50 – 54 ], and having liberal values [ 45 , 46 , 49 , 52 , 55 – 59 ]. Thus, vegetarians can be reliably characterized, to some degree, in broad strokes.

Yet, different vegetarians can arrive at a plant-based diet for very different reasons. How are people who are primarily motivated by their personal health different from people who are primarily motivated by their concerns about the environment or their compassion for animals? The second goal of this project is to distinguish people who are most likely to pursue plant-based diets for reasons related to their personal health, the environment, or animal rights. Distinct profiles of people with these different motives could help advocacy campaigns reliably identify individuals and groups who are most likely to respond to their message.

Given the limited evidence regarding correlates of different motivations and the fact that there is a wide range of plausible correlates, our overall approach was to include an extensive array of possible attributes with plausible links to vegetarian motives and to use multiple samples and increasingly strict statistical tests to hone in on replicable associations. We included attributes related to demographic characteristics, personality traits, values, hobbies, religious background and behavior, habits, entertainment preferences, and patterns of social media use. We then 1) identified potential correlates in an American undergraduate convenience sample, 2) identified which associations replicate in an American community convenience sample, and 3) tested preregistered hypotheses, based on these replicated associations, about which variables would replicate in a large representative Dutch sample. We reasoned that any associations observed consistently across all three of these samples would be sufficiently robust to be useful for informing research on motives for plant-based eating and for guiding advocacy efforts.

Vegetarian motives and responsiveness to advocacy materials

The motivational complexity of vegetarian behavior implies that advocacy will generally be most effective if it targets the specific motives of its audience. This is presumably why advocacy groups tend to campaign on one of the three main reasons to adopt plant-based diets—health, the environment, and animal rights. But is it true that people with different levels of health, environmental, and animal rights motives will be differentially sensitive to advocacy materials that target their primary motives? The third goal of this project was to use the measure we developed to determine whether individual differences in motives for vegetarian eating predict responsiveness to advocacy materials that focus on health, the environment, or animal rights.

This study was approved by the UC Davis IRB #1145613–1 and #1372555–2.

Our first sample consisted of 1006 undergraduates attending a public university in the United States who participated in exchange for course credit. The mean age of these students was 19.80 (SD = 3.33); 822 (81.7%) were female, 180 (17.9%) male, and 4 (0.4%) nonbinary. Racial composition was 485 Asian (48.2%), 22 black (2.2%), 47 Latin American (4.7%), 27 Native American (2.7%), 328 white (32.6%), 94 multiracial (9.3%), and 3 other (0.3%); 252 (25.0%) reported Hispanic ethnicity. Eleven participants self-identified as vegan and 44 as vegetarian.

Our second sample consisted of 1004 Amazon MTurk Workers who completed a survey for financial compensation (prorated at $10/hour). The average age in this sample was 36.46 (SD = 10.99); 471 (46.91%) were female, 532 (53.00%) were male, and 1 (0.1%) was nonbinary. Ethnic/racial composition was 63 (6.7%) Asian, 113 (11.3%) black, 111 (11.1%) Hispanic, 10 (1.0%) Native American, 780 (77.7%) white, 32 (3.2%) multiracial, and 6 (0.6%) other. Participants in this sample were not restricted based on geography. Seventeen participants self-identified as vegan and 25 as vegetarian.

Our third sample included 5478 Dutch participants drawn from the Longitudinal Internet Studies of the Social Sciences (LISS). The mean age in this sample was 51.34 (SD = 18.31); 3,106 (54.0%) were female and 2,642 (46.0%) were male. Sixty-nine participants self-identified as vegan; vegetarian identity was not assessed in the LISS sample.

Our fourth sample consisted of 739 undergraduate participants (mean age = 20.01, SD = 3,60; 615 women (83.0%); 186 Hispanic (25.0%) ethnicity; 178 white (24.0%), 10 black (1.4%), 363 Asian (49.0%), 4 Pacific Islander (0.5%), 84 multiracial (11.4%), and 95 other race (12.9%). Eight people reported vegan diet and 27 reported vegetarian diet.

The only exclusion criterion across samples was being 18 years or older. Participants were not excluded based on dietary habits or preferences.

Instrument development strategies

Based on an initial literature review, we generated 26 items designed to assess health, environmental, and animal rights motives for a plant-based diet. We administered these items to participants in Sample 1 and conducted a series of item-level factor analyses to identify a reduced set of items that loaded onto the three factors with strong pattern coefficients and minimal cross-loadings. We then administered and examined this reduced set of items in Sample 2. We examined the fit of the measurement model within both samples and measurement invariance across both samples using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Items, instructions, and response scales for the final version of the instrument, which we called the Vegetarian Eating Motives Inventory (VEMI), are given in Table 1 .

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Please rate the importance of each of the following reasons for you to eat less meat or animal products. Please rate these items even if you don’t intend to change your diet.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t001

We translated the VEMI items into Dutch in order to administer it to Sample 3. We first asked a native Dutch speaker who also speaks English to translate the items. We then asked a native English speaker who also speaks Dutch to back translate them. The research team confirmed that the content was retained for all items through this process. We evaluated the fit of the measurement model and measurement invariance using CFA. Items, instructions, and response scales for the Dutch version of the VEMI are available at https://osf.io/wyfgb/ .

Validating measures

We sought to measure a wide range of variables that could plausibly distinguish motives for a plant-based diet. Our main constraint was the measures that already existed in the LISS data (i.e., Sample 3) to whom we would administer the VEMI but whose data collection was otherwise already planned. Overall, we assessed 260 characteristics ( https://osf.io/y8nd5/ ). These characteristics included demographic features, personality traits, terminal and instrumental values, religious beliefs and behaviors, involvement in various organizations and volunteer activities, employment/income, hobbies/interests, online behavior and preferences, social behavior, and habits.

Strategy for identifying correlates of vegetarian motives

Our general approach to identifying specific motive-outcome associations in order to pre-register hypotheses for Sample 3 was to estimate a series of multiple latent regressions using the R package lavaan [ 60 ] in Sample 1 that we then attempted to replicate in Sample 2. First, we estimated six different models separately: one in which all associations between outcome and the three latent eating motives variables were constrained to be equal (model All Equal), one in which all motive-outcome associations were constrained to zero (model All Zero), three in which one motive-outcome association was estimated freely but the other two motives were constrained to have equal associations with the outcome (models Animal Free, Environment Free, and Health Free), and one in which all motive-outcome associations were estimated freely (model All Free).

We then conducted a series of nested χ 2 model comparison tests for each motive-outcome association to identify which of these six models best fit the data. We first compared the fit of model All Equal to model All Zero. If model All Zero did not fit significantly worse ( p < .05), we selected model All Zero as the best fit and concluded that no eating motives were significantly associated with the outcome variable. If model All Zero fit worse than model All Free, we compared the fit of model All Equal to whichever of Animal Free, Environment Free, and Health Free fit best to the data (as these models have equal degrees of freedom, they were not nested; the best-fitting model was identified as the one with the lowest χ 2 and BIC values). If none of these models fit significantly better than model All Equal, we selected model All Equal as the best fit and concluded that the three eating motives were not differentially associated with the outcome variable. However, if Animal Free, Environment Free, or Health Free models fit significantly better to the data than model All Equal, we compared the fit of that model versus the fit of model All Free. If model All Free fit significantly better, we concluded that eating motives were differentially associated with the outcome variable. If All Free did not fit significantly better, and Animal Free, Environment Free, or Health Free was the best fitting model, we concluded that one specific motive was differentially associated with the outcome variable. The R code used to perform these analyses is available at https://osf.io/49shv/ .

Next, we examined whether any patterns of non-zero motive-outcome associations replicated in the MTurk sample. To do this, we estimated two multiple-groups models in lavaan. In the first model (model Replication), motive-outcome associations from the best-fitting model identified in Sample 1 (model All Free, Animal Free, Health Free, Environment Free, or All Equal) were imposed to be equal across both samples. In the second model (model Nonreplication), motive-outcome associations in Sample 1 were constrained to the best-fitting model, while motive-outcome associations in Sample 2 were freely estimated. We compared the fits of these two nested models using a χ 2 model comparison test. If model Nonreplication fit the data significantly better ( p < .05), we concluded that the pattern of associations did not replicate across samples. Otherwise, we concluded that the pattern of associations in Sample 1 replicated in Sample 2.

Although the aforementioned steps described our primary procedure, it had two important limitations. First, inspection of the path coefficients revealed instances when very similar effect sizes across samples were classified as non-replications. Second, because these analyses used multiple regressions, they were also prone to suppression effects. We therefore contextualized these initial results with two additional rules. First, to restrict our interpretations to meaningful effects, we examined whether any moderate-or-stronger associations between specific eating motives and outcomes replicated across samples. To do this, we first identified all outcomes for which one or more motive-outcome associations was stronger than Beta weights = |.15| in both samples. We only retained variables with an effect of |.15| or larger. Second, to avoid interpreting effects that were only present due to statistical suppression, we examined the bivariate correlations for each replicated motive-criterion association in the first two samples and discarded the cases in which the regression coefficient and bivariate correlation were of opposite signs or in which the bivariate correlation was < |.15|.

Vegetarian motives and responsivity to advocacy flyers

We conducted a pre-registered validation study to test the sensitivity of the VEMI scales to attitudes about advocacy flyers specifically appealing to health, environmental, and animal rights motives for a plant-based diet (see https://www.vegansociety.com ). Participants answered six questions about each flyer (e.g., this flyer made me want to be vegan) on a scale from 1–7. Internal consistencies were above .90 for these sets of questions for all three flyers, and an item-level factor analysis provided strong support for a single factor. We predicted that scores on the VEMI motives scales would be specifically associated with positive attitudes about the flyer targeting that motive (e.g., health motives would be related to positive attitudes about the health flyer) as indexed by both significant bivariate correlations and significant Beta weights in regression models in which all three VEMI scales are regressed upon the attitude scales, one at a time.

Pre-registration, methods, measures, scripts, and supplemental results for samples 1–3 as well as data for samples 1 and 2 are available at https://osf.io/52v6z/ . Data for sample 3 can be requested at https://www.lissdata.nl . Preregistration, materials, and data for sample 4 are available at https://osf.io/9wre4/ .

Developing the Vegetarian Motives Inventory (VEMI)

Fifteen items were chosen from the original pool of 26 ( Table 1 ) based on exploratory factor analyses in Sample 1. The model fit the data well and was invariant across all three samples ( Table 2 ). It was also invariant across men and women and across white vs. non-white participants in samples 1 and 2 ( Table 2 ). Cronbach’s alpha estimates of internal consistency across the three samples, respectively, were .88, .91, and .89 for the health scale, .90, .94, and .92 for the environment scale, and .93, .96, and .94 for the animal rights scale. Latent correlations between these scales in the three samples, respectively, were .33, .40, and .43 between health and environment, .27, .35, and .49 between health and animal rights, and .57, .70, and .59 between environment and animal rights.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t002

VEMI scale means across our first three samples are given in Table 3 . In general, people tended to respond above the raw midpoint of 4, indicating that health, the environment, and animal rights are all considered to be generally compelling reasons to adopt a plant-based diet. This was particularly the case for the health scale, for which the mean approached 6 (out of 7) in all three samples. As a validity check, we also asked participants in Samples 1 and 2 to rank the main reason they would choose to adopt a plant-based diet. Of the 1826 participants who responded to this question, the standardized means for corresponding VEMI scales were consistently ranked as the most important reason (e.g. people who rated Health highest on the VEMI scale also tended to rank Health as their main reason to adopt a plant-based diet). Again, these results showed that health is the most common reason among this primarily non-vegetarian sample to consider eating less meat, as 75% of respondents ranked this motive first. Finally, large effects distinguished the 97 vegans across all three samples from non-vegan respondents for the health (d = .51), environment (d = 1.29), and animal rights (d = .97) scales (all p < .001; Table 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t003

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t004

Identifying correlates of plant-based eating motives

Based on an initial examination of criterion variable distributions, the following variables were log-transformed in order to normalize distributions: gross monthly income, all values, weekly hours volunteering, weekly hours spent watching sports, weekly hours watching tv, weekly hours listening to the radio, number of books read in the last 30 days, frequency of social media use, and hours per week spent online. We also log-transformed these variables in Samples 2 and 3. We excluded 49 binary variables with insufficient variance in either Samples 1 or 2 (i.e., less than 50 participants responding either “no” or “yes”) and 4 continuous variables with no variance in Samples 1 or 2. We did not consider any other variables in the LISS sample that were not also assessed in Samples 1 and 2. Given these exclusions, we examined associations between VEMI scales and 207 remaining criterion variables.

We first computed bivariate correlations between VEMI scales and the 207 criterion variables. The 56 criterion variables with replicated associations (p < .01) across all three samples are presented in Table 5 . Among those, most variables correlated with all three motives, with health motives uniquely, or with both health and animal rights motives.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t005

As described above, our primary analytic approach used a regression-based strategy in a latent-variable framework to test preregistered predictions in sample 3 based on results from samples 1 and 2. Among the207 criterion variables, we identified 33 that were significantly associated with at least one VEMI scale in both of the first two samples. Table 6 shows the results of the best-fitting models for those criterion variables. We based predictions for Sample 3 based on two criteria from analyses of data from samples 1 and 2.: a positive standardized path coefficient of |.15| or larger and a bivariate correlation of |.15| or larger. Based on these results, we predicted that a) valuing peace would be related to all three motives (in this case we relaxed our rule somewhat; although the regression coefficient for animal motives was .14 in the second sample, bivariate correlations were virtually identical across variables), b) agreeable personality, valuing truth, responsibility, hard work, forgivingness, courage, helpfulness, lovingness, self-control, independence, instrumental happiness, intellect, family security, freedom, self-respect, terminal happiness, wisdom, national security, salvation, friendship, accomplishment, harmony, comfort, and mature love would have specific associations with health motives, c) being involved with an environmental organization would have a specific association with environmental motives, and d) caring for plants or animals would have a specific association with animal rights motives. Seven variables with standardized regression coefficients above our threshold in both samples did not have bivariate correlations < |.15| and thus we predicted they would not be related to any plant-based eating motives in the LISS data. The preregistration document for Sample 3 based on these findings can be found at https://osf.io/rk4en/ . We mistakenly made predictions about three variables based on results in sample 1 and 2 that were not available in LISS—being vegetarian, eating meat, and being involved in an animal organization.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t006

Associations that met the replication criteria described in the preceding paragraph are given in Table 7 . Overall, 16 variables were related specifically and positively to health motives, including the personality trait agreeableness and a number of different values. The only variable that was related specifically to environmental motives was participation in an environmental organization. No variables were related specifically to animal rights motives.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t007

Participants from Sample 4 completed the VEMI and answered questions about advocacy flyers targeting health, environment, and animal rights motives created by The Vegan Society. We used these data to test pre-registered hypotheses about the specificity of correlations between the VEMI scales and attitudes about flyers targeting health, environment, and animal rights motives ( https://osf.io/9wre4/ ). Table 8 shows that all bivariate correlations between motives and responses to flyers were statistically significant ( p < .05). As predicted, the strongest correlate of the environment flyer was the VEMI environment scale and the strongest correlate of the animal rights flyer was the VEMI animal rights scale. Inconsistent with our hypotheses, both the environment and animal rights scales were also more strongly correlated with responses to the health flyer, suggesting that people who are motivated by health are not particularly impacted by vegetarian advocacy, in general.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230609.t008

Regression models confirmed primary associations between the environment motives and responses to the environment flyer and animal rights motives to the animal rights flyer. The VEMI environment scale emerged as the only significant predictor in the regression model for the health flyer. These preregistered regression models tested associations between vegetarian motives and responses to the flyers, controlling for other vegetarian motives. We conducted exploratory analyses in which we reversed the independent and dependent variables in our regression analyses, to test whether flyers would have specific relations with motives, controlling for the responses to other flyers. In those models, responses to the health flyer emerged as the only significant predictor of the VEMI health scale (β = .15). Likewise, responses to the environment and animal rights flyers were the only significant predictors of the VEMI environment and animal rights scales, respectively. This pattern indicates that, controlling for general motives to be a vegetarian, there are no specific links between health motives and responses to health-focused advocacy, whereas controlling for general responsivity to advocacy, there may be specific links between health-focused advocacy and health-related vegetarian motives. Overall, the results support the utility of targeting advocacy based on the environment or animal rights to people most likely to care about those issues, and provide weak to mixed support for targeting advocacy based on health motives.

The variety of pathways that can lead a person to vegetarian diet raises the possibility that people who select different pathways are also different in other ways, but little is known about these differences or their importance for eating behavior. Thus, the purposes of this study were to develop a measure of health, environmental, and animal rights motives for vegetarian eating, examine the correlates of these dimensions, and test whether motives differentially predict responses to advocacy materials.

Vegetarian eating motives inventory

Our first step was to develop the Vegetarian Eating Motives Inventory (VEMI), a measure that reliably distinguishes between health, environmental, and animal rights motives for plant-based diets. The scales of this brief instrument were internally consistent and demonstrated a robust factor structure, including measurement invariance across three samples in two languages, men and women, and white and non-white participants. This measure has considerable promise for future research on the motivations for plant-based eating in Western cultures. Moreover, although our goal was to develop the VEMI to assess the potential motives of non-vegetarians in a general population, it can be easily adapted for research among vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians, reducetarians, and other groups. It could also be used at an individual level to better understand the kinds of factors that might be most influential for a particular person. The VEMI thus provides researchers and advocates with a well-validated and flexible measure for assessing the primary motives for plant-based eating among various individuals and groups.

Eating motivation profiles

We next used the VEMI scale to identify profiles of individuals who are most sympathetic to different reasons to be vegetarian. Overall, findings from three diverse samples suggested that health motives are the most common reason to consider adopting a plant-based diet in general and that health motives have the broadest array of correlates.

A number of criteria reliably correlated with plant-based motives across samples. By this standard, 21 variables correlated with all three motives. The common thread in this list seemed to be a communal orientation to life (e.g., agreeableness, loving, and valuing peace). The profile of people motivated by health was more conventional, as defined by 20 variables (e.g., male, hard-working, obedient, life satisfaction, and religiosity). The only variables that correlated uniquely with environmental motives were openness to experience and having visited a museum. Being involved in a religious organization and doing crafts were uniquely related to the animal rights motive. Valuing intellectual pursuits was related to both health and environmental motives, whereas being involved in a humanity organization was related to both environmental and animal rights motives. Finally, nine variables were related to both health and animal rights motives. As a group, they seemed to involve morality (e.g., conscientiousness, valuing truth, being self-controlled).

In our primary analytic approach, we used a more restrictive strategy with latent variables to account for measurement error and regression models to identify unique associations with each of the plant-based motives. Based on this approach, people who were primarily motivated by their health tended to be more agreeable, to have instrumental values (i.e. preferred means of achieving goals) involving hard work, courage, love, self-control, being happy, and to have terminal values (i.e., desired end states) involving family security, self-respect, happiness, national security, salvation, friendship, accomplishment, harmony, comfort, and mature love. This pattern paints a picture of a fairly conventional person who views working hard and getting along with others as the formula for a good life. In general, people whose main motives for considering a vegetarian diet are related to their health were not particularly compelled by vegetarian flyers, regardless of their content.

The only criterion uniquely and reliably related to environmental motives was participation in an environmental rights organization. No criteria were reliably related to animal rights motives across all three samples based on our primary analytic strategy. These circumscribed findings for the environment and animal rights scales surprised us given the large number of correlates we examined. This could have to do with our relatively conservative analytic approach, given the larger number of findings based on bivariate correlations that were significant at p < .01. However, by and large these results suggest that few traits, values, hobbies, habits, or demographic characteristics correlate in a way that is both robust and specific to the two major ethical motives for plant-based eating. This may suggest that “ethical vegetarianism” is a moral issue with relative specificity, as exemplified by the large numbers of people who actively promote social justice and environmental protection yet continue to eat animals. While there was some specificity between animal rights/environmental motives and responsivity to animal rights/environmental flyers, a more general finding is that people with ethical motives to consider a vegetarian diet were more responsive to advocacy flyers, including one that emphasized health benefits.

Implications for targeted advocacy

This pattern of results presents a kind of paradox for targeted advocacy. The most common reason people say they would consider being vegetarian has to do with health, and this study identified factors that could be used to identify those people. However, people driven primarily by health motives are least likely to respond to vegetarian advocacy. One interpretation of these results is that most people care about their health, but most people don’t connect health to vegetarian diet because the connection is indeed tenuous empirically. The fact that the most common reason people cite for considering a vegetarian diet is also the least compelling may help explain why there continues to be relatively few vegetarians, and why people motivated by health are also least strict [ 41 , 45 , 61 – 63 ] and compliant [ 1 , 64 , 65 ] with a vegetarian diet. Our data also supports this view somewhat, in that being vegan was more strongly associated with animal and plant motives than health motives in all three samples, although it did not surpass our cutoff in Sample 1 (correlations were .12 with both the animal and environment scales).

Conversely, people who are sympathetic to the ethical arguments for a vegetarian diet cannot easily be distinguished in other ways, but they are most likely to respond to vegetarian advocacy. The one exception is the relatively unsurprising finding that people affiliated with environmental advocacy groups are most likely to respond to an environmental argument supports the idea of encouraging individuals motivated by such concerns to see the connection between plant-based diets and climate change (e.g., [ 66 ]). Indeed, it is likely that many individuals who are passionate about this issue are not fully informed about the negative environmental impact of eating meat [ 67 ], and this information gap could be usefully exploited by animal advocacy groups who target individuals with a demonstrated interest in environmental activism.

However, overall these results do not seem to support the utility of selecting advocacy materials based on the kinds of people those materials would target. Instead, these results provide important information about ways in which targeted advocacy might not be productive. For instance, none of the demographic features that are known to be associated with plant-based eating in general, such as being young [ 44 , 45 ], female [ 1 , 44 , 46 – 49 , 63 ] and liberal [ 45 , 46 , 49 , 52 , 55 – 59 ], were differentially associated with health, environmental, or animal rights motives. The higher rates of vegetarianism among such individuals suggest that they represent fruitful targets for advocacy in general, but the results of this study do not provide guidance about which motives to appeal to among them, in particular.

It is worth noting that approaches to advocacy may depend on the end goal and beliefs about the best way to achieve that goal. Animal rights advocates [ 29 , 68 ] have argued that vegetarian advocacy should always focus on ethical motives. The more practical sector of plant-based diet advocacy (e.g., Leenaert, 2017; Joy, 2008 [ 30 , 31 ]) may be relatively more receptive to emphasizing health as a potential first step in reducing meat consumption. Our results about the specific correlates of health motives may help guide this step. Ultimately, evidence that links motives, advocacy approaches, and behavior change will determine the best way to reduce meat consumption in general, and we suspect that a multipronged approach may prove most effective [ 69 ].

Limitations and future directions

Although we examined a large number of criteria, we were constrained by the data collected by LISS and it is likely that we missed important unmeasured variables that would specifically correlate with different vegetarian motives. Likewise, while health, the environment, and animal rights are the most common motives for plant-based diets in Western societies, certain individuals may have more specific reasons that are not sampled on the VEMI, such as those related to religion or taste. Specificity may also be required to better understand the resistance to vegetarian diets. For instance, concerns have been raised about the difficulties poorer people have in finding healthy plant-based food, and this poses a considerable challenge to plant-based diet advocates for whom positioning one form of social justice (i.e., animal rights) against another (i.e., opportunities for the underprivileged) does little good.

A second major limitation is that the current results do not inform specific strategies to encourage people with different motives to change their diets in practice. For instance, some research suggested that people change their behavior upon becoming more aware of the impacts of eating animals [ 34 , 65 , 70 – 72 ], whereas other research suggested that increasing people’s awareness alone may not be sufficient to effectively change their behavior [ 31 , 73 ]. This issue sits downstream from the goals of our work, but it is equally critical for the ultimate goals of understanding the transition to vegetarian diets.

Third, in this study we exclusively employed self-report measures because we were interested in consciously accessible motives. However, future work examining attitudes that may be outside of peoples’ conscious awareness as well as directly behavioral outcome variables would be a useful extension of the current studies. Fourth, further work could be done to understand the underlying mechanisms of different attitudes towards plant-based dieting and animals [ 74 ]. Fifth, we focused in this study on distinguishing among the three major non-religious motives for vegetarian diet, because research suggests that these are the most common motives in general and because advocacy focuses almost exclusively on these three reasons to avoid meat. However, our results suggest that the VEMI scales could be combined into an overall composite useful for examining motives for vegetarian diet in general, in that the scales were intercorrelated and each distinguished vegan from non-vegan respondents. Moreover, there may be considerable value in assessing motives beyond those measured by the VEMI.

Finally, different approaches to the one taken here may be useful for identifying profiles of people who will tend to respond to different forms of activism. For example, machine learning approaches can be used in very large samples of users to identify an array of online behaviors that may be related to different motives for plant-based diets. This is a powerful tool that may have applicability, for instance in sampling online behavior to produce algorithms that can target specified audiences from within social media platforms [ 75 ]. Another is that considering the motives in favor of meat-eating [ 76 ] may prove useful in identifying the best way of encouraging plant-based diets. In a previous, preliminary study, we found that health motives were unrelated to motives for eating meat, whereas the environmental and animal rights motives were negatively related to seeing meat eating as “normal” or “nice” [ 77 ]. Future work that examines the links between motives to avoid meat and motives to eat meat would accordingly be informative.

In this study, we developed the Vegetarian Eating Motives Inventory (VEMI), a brief and psychometrically robust measure of the three main motives for adopting a plant-based diet: health, the environment, and animal rights. We used this measure to identify profiles of people most likely to respond to appeals to these different motives and to test whether motives predict responses to advocacy materials. In a general populati0n, health motives are the most common and have the widest array of correlates, which generally involve agentic and communal values. However, people who cite health motives were relatively unresponsive to advocacy materials compared to people who cite environmental or animal rights motives.

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• Published: 22 April 2020

Prevalence and psychopathology of vegetarians and vegans – Results from a representative survey in Germany

• Georgios Paslakis 1 , 2 ,
• Candice Richardson 1 ,
• Mariel Nöhre 3 ,
• Elmar Brähler 4 , 6 ,
• Christina Holzapfel 5 ,
• Anja Hilbert 6 &
• Martina de Zwaan 3  

Scientific Reports volume  10 , Article number:  6840 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 10 November 2020

This article has been updated

The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of, and attitudes toward, vegetarianism and veganism. We also assessed the association between vegetarianism/veganism and eating disorder, depressive, and somatic symptoms. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey in adults in Germany that was representative in terms of age, gender, and educational level was carried out. Data from 2449 adults (53.5% females) were included. Mean age was 49.6 (SD 17.1) years. A total of 5.4% of participants reported following a vegetarian or vegan diet. While the majority of participants agreed that vegetarian diets are healthy and harmless (56.1%), only 34.8% believed this to be true of vegan diets. The majority of participants also believed that a vegetarian (58.7%) or vegan (74.7%) diet can lead to nutritional deficiency. Female gender, younger age, higher education, lower body mass index (BMI), and higher depressive and eating disorder symptoms were found to be associated with vegetarianism/veganism. We did not find increased physical complaints in the group of vegetarians/vegans. Our results point toward a moderate prevalence of vegetarianism/veganism among the general population. Our findings suggest that health care professionals should keep eating disorder pathology, affective status in mind when dealing with individuals who choose a vegetarian/vegan dietary pattern.

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Introduction.

To date research about vegetarianism and veganism is still young even though plant-based nutrition seems to have gained increasing popularity and represents a growing social movement 1 . Vegetarianism is a generic term that encompasses a variety of dietary patterns that each involves, to some extent, the avoidance of meat 2 . While omnivores consume all types of animal products 3 , true vegetarians are defined as those who do not eat any meat, poultry, or fish 4 . Vegetarians may be further sub-classified based on the inclusion of eggs (ovo-vegetarians), diary (lacto-vegetarians), fish (pesco-vegetarians), poultry (pollo-vegetarians), or a combination of these foods in their diet 2 , 5 , 6 . Finally, vegans are those who refrain from eating any animal products, including meat, fish, dairy, eggs, and other animal-derived foods 3 . Individuals may adopt a vegetarian diet for a variety of reasons which may be ethical, moral, religious, environmental, health-related, or concerns about animal welfare 7 . The majority of recent studies suggest that ethical concerns are the most common motivation for adopting a vegetarian diet, followed by health considerations 3 , 5 , 8 . While health vegetarians avoid meat in order to derive the perceived health benefits of a vegetarian diet or to lose weight, ethical vegetarians avoid meat for animal welfare reasons 9 . The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of, and attitudes toward, vegetarianism and veganism in a representative sample of the general adult population in Germany.

The prevalence of vegetarianism varies around the world with recent polls indicating that approximately 5% of Americans 10 , 8% of Canadians 11 , and 4.3% of Germans 6 follow a vegetarian diet. However, the highest proportion of vegetarians are found in India, where they comprise 30% of the population 12 , 13 . Veganism is less common with the prevalence reported to be about 2% in the United States 10 and less than 1% in Germany 14 . In several studies, education and income were found to be inversely associated with meat consumption 14 , 15 , 16 . Subsequent research conducted within Central European countries also indicates that vegetarians tend to be more educated and affluent than omnivores 14 , 17 . Allès et al . 18 confirmed that vegetarians tend to be more educated than omnivores, but also found out that vegans tend to have lower educational attainment. Additionally, women are far more likely to be vegetarian than men 8 ; even among non-vegetarians, women have been found to eat considerably less meat than men 1 , 14 , 19 , 20 .

Although strict and unbalanced dietary restrictions can pose a risk of micronutrient deficiencies 2 , it is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are nutritionally adequate and may be beneficial for health 21 . A comprehensive meta-analysis of 80 studies provides evidence for the link between a vegetarian diet and a lowered risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and certain types of cancer 22 . Vegetarianism has also been associated with reduced risk of hypertension, diverticular disease, degenerative arthritis, and metabolic syndrome in other studies 4 , 23 . Also, the use of vegetarian and vegan diets is often associated with other health behaviors including non-smoking and regular physical activity 1 . Additionally, studies conducted in Western countries have consistently shown that vegetarians have a lower BMI compared to their non-vegetarian counterparts, with vegans having the lowest BMI 24 , 25 , 26 .

There is mixed evidence as to whether vegetarianism is associated with more positive or negative mental health 27 . Although vegetarians have reported more positive mood in some studies 28 , 29 , they have described more psychological symptoms associated with anxiety and depression in others 30 , 31 . Similarly, while some studies 32 , 33 , 34 have found a higher risk of depression among vegetarians, others 5 , 28 show no significant difference between vegetarians and omnivores. Furthermore, adolescent vegetarians were more likely to be depressed 35 and have contemplated suicide 36 when compared to adolescent omnivores. Adherence to a vegetarian diet has been hypothesized to be a factor in the development and maintenance of disordered eating 5 as the restrictive nature of the diet may be used as a socially acceptable way to refrain from eating specific foods 3 . The majority of studies 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 suggest that vegetarians exhibit greater levels of disordered eating than omnivores; however, two recent studies suggest that this may not always be the case 40 , 41 . Indeed, in one study by Timko et al . 5 , semi-vegetarians, defined as those who exclude red meat from their diet, were found to have the highest level of eating pathology, while true vegetarians and vegans appeared healthiest in regards to eating and body weight. Thus, it is important to understand attitudes toward plant-based diets and the potential association with eating disorder, depressive, and somatic symptoms, as these findings, in conjunction with those from additional longitudinal studies, can lead to the development of more specific guidelines for healthcare professionals to monitor patients that follow these types of diets.

While the primary aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of, and attitudes toward, vegetarianism and veganism, we also assessed the association between vegetarianism/veganism and eating disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, and the presence of somatic symptoms. We expected that consistent with previous studies, vegetarians/vegans would display a higher burden of eating disorder and general psychopathology.

Recruitment

A random sample of German residents aged 14 years and older (age range 14 to 91 years) were recruited as part of a cross-sectional survey on physical and mental well-being. For the purposes of the present investigation we only assessed adults (≥18 years of age). A demographic consulting company (USUMA GmbH, Berlin, Germany) assisted with sampling and data collection. The procedure was designed to yield a nation-wide sample representative in terms of age, gender, and educational level over the fieldwork period from May to July 2018. Sociodemographic data were collected in-person by trained interviewers and participants also completed a battery of self-report questionnaires.

Data acquisition

In Germany, no directory is generally available that contains the addresses of all private households or individuals, which could be used by market research agencies as a sampling frame. The data collected by the local authorities are only available for surveys considered to be of major public interest. A group of agencies called the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft ADM-Stichproben” closes this gap by providing a sampling frame to member agencies, the so-called “ADM-Sampling-System for Face-to-Face Surveys”. This frame allows representative face-to-face samples to be drawn for all households in Germany and for all people living in those households. In addition, the main statistical data are provided on a detailed level for this population. The ADM-Sampling-System is described in detail elsewhere 42 , 43 .

The participation rate was 46.9% (2531 of 5393 persons), taking into account all refusals to participate, as well as interviews that failed to take place due to respondents’ illness or being otherwise unavailable during the fieldwork. All participants provided their written informed consent in accordance with the Helsinki declaration. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical School of the University of Leipzig.

The following sociodemographic data were assessed: gender (male and female), age (distinguished according to groups: 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–65, >65 years), educational level (<12 and ≥12 years), monthly income (0 to <1000, 1000–2500, and ≥2500 euros per month), population size (<5000, 5000–50000, and ≥50000 residents). The BMI was calculated based on participants’ self-reported height and weight.

Dietary assessment

To assess self-reported dietary patterns, participants were asked the following question “Have you been consciously eating a vegetarian diet for at least 2 weeks?” This question has been repeated for vegan diet. It was explained to participants that vegetarian means omitting meat, but eating plants and milk products, and vegan means omitting all foods of animal origin.

Subsequently, participants were presented with a series of 11 statements about vegetarian diets. The same statements were asked for a vegan diet. Participants responded to each statement using a 4-point Likert scale ranging from “totally agree” to “totally disagree”. All statements were short and simple:

A vegetarian diet is completely healthy and harmless.

A vegetarian diet can lead to a nutritional deficiency.

People who follow a vegetarian diet are seldom overweight.

Individuals who follow a vegetarian diet are more productive.

A vegetarian diet is able to prevent disease.

A vegetarian diet is good for the environment.

A vegetarian diet is less cruel to animals.

People who follow a vegetarian diet are made fun of.

A vegetarian diet is not tasty.

A vegetarian diet is expensive.

People who eat a vegetarian diet do so out of ethical motivation.

Additionally, omnivores were asked if a vegetarian or vegan diet would be a viable diet for them to pursue. All questions and statements were constructed and finally chosen from a larger pool by experienced nutritionists, physicians and psychologists.

Psychological assessment

Participants also completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) 44 , the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire 8 (EDE-Q8) 45 , and a brief form of the Giessen Subjective Complaints List (GBB-8) 46 . The PHQ-4 allows for the brief measurement of depression and anxiety based on participants’ responses to 4 items on a Likert scale ranging from “not at all” to “nearly every day”. Total scores range from 0 to 12, and correspond to no (0–2), mild (3–5), moderate (6–8), or severe (9–12) psychological distress 44 . The EDE-Q8 is an 8-item self-report questionnaire used to assess eating disorder psychopathology. Scores range from 0 to 6, with higher scores indicating greater psychopathology 45 . Similarly, the GBB-8 is a brief, self-report questionnaire used to assess somatic symptom strain. Total scores range from 0 to 32, while scores on the four subscales (exhaustion, gastrointestinal complaints, musculoskeletal complaints, and cardiovascular complaints) range from 0 to 8 with higher scores indicating greater symptom strain 46 .

Statistical analyses

For analysis of the dietary statements, the answers “totally agree” and “agree” were grouped together, as were “disagree” and “totally disagree”. T-Tests or Chi-square tests were performed appropriately when comparing vegetarians/vegans with omnivores. In order to examine the predictive value of the independent variables, a binary logistic regression was performed with vegetarianism and veganism as dependent variable. The level of significance was set at p ≤ 0.05. Bonferroni correction for multiple testing was performed according to the number of independent variables in each hypothesis testing. Unweighted data were used. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.).

Participants

A total of 2531 individuals participated in the survey. Of those, 82 were excluded for being younger than 18 years. Thus, data from a total of 2449 adults were analyzed. This cohort consisted of 46.5% (1138/2449) males and 53.5% (1311/2449) females. Mean age was 49.6 (SD 17.1) years, and 40.9% (1001/2449) of participants were aged older than 55 years. Additionally, the mean BMI was 25.9 (SD 2.1) kg/m 2 . More details on socio-demographics of the cohort are shown in Table  1 .

Prevalence of self-defined vegetarianism and veganism

When participants were asked whether they have followed a conscious vegetarian diet for at least two weeks, 5.2% (126/2444) indicated yes. The non-vegetarian participants were further asked whether a vegetarian diet would be a viable diet form to pursue. Of the 2316 respondents to this question, 11.2% (259/2316) indicated yes. In a similar manner, 1.3% (31/2446) of participants reported following a strict vegan diet. The non-vegan participants were further asked whether a vegan diet would be a potential diet form to adopt, to which 5.9% (142/2414) indicated yes.

There was considerable overlap in the endorsement of vegetarian and vegan dietary patterns. Of the 133 (5.4%) participants who reported following a vegetarian and/or vegan diet, 18% (24/133) answered “yes” to both questions, 76.7% (102/133) reported following a vegetarian but not a vegan diet, and 5.3% (7/133) indicated they followed a vegan but not vegetarian diet. Given this overlap, for the present analysis, those who endorsed a vegetarian and/or vegan diet were grouped together. Thus, the prevalence of current self-defined vegetarians/vegans was 5.4% in the present sample.

Attitudes toward vegetarian and vegan diets

When participants were asked about their attitudes toward a vegetarian diet, the majority of both vegetarians/vegans and omnivores agreed that a vegetarian diet is completely healthy and harmless, good for the environment, and less cruel to animals. The majority of both groups also believed that those who eat a vegetarian diet do so out of ethical motivation, and are seldom overweight. Conversely, the majority of both groups disagreed with the notions that vegetarians are made fun of and that a vegetarian diet is not tasty. While the majority of vegetarians/vegans agreed that vegetarians are more productive and that the diet can prevent disease, only a minority of omnivores agreed with these statements. Similarly, while the majority of omnivores agreed that a vegetarian diet is expensive and can lead to nutritional deficiencies, the majority of vegetarians/vegans disagreed with these statements. Full details are displayed in Table  2 .

Similarly, when asked about their attitudes toward a vegan diet, the majority of vegetarians/vegans and omnivores, again, agreed that those who eat a vegan diet do so out of ethical motivation, are seldom overweight, and that a vegan diet is good for the environment and less cruel toward animals. However, in opposition to their attitudes toward vegetarian diets, the majority of both groups believed that a vegan diet can lead to nutritional deficiency, and that those who follow a vegan diet are made fun of. While the majority of vegetarians/vegans agreed that a vegan diet is completely healthy and harmless, can prevent disease, and that those who follow a vegan diet are more productive, the majority of omnivores disagreed with these statements. Similarly, while the majority of omnivores agreed that a vegan diet is expensive and not tasty, the majority of vegetarians/vegans disagreed with these notions. Full details are displayed in Table  3 .

Comparison between self-defined vegetarians/vegans and omnivores

Comparing vegetarians/vegans to omnivores, no differences in income distribution or population size of the community or city of origin were found. Among vegetarians/vegans, a significantly higher proportion were female (73.7% vs. 26.3%; X 2 (1) = 23.174, p < 0.001). Additionally, vegetarians/vegans were significantly younger than omnivores (M = 40.9, SD = 15.5 vs. M = 50.0, SD = 17.0; t(2442) = −6.033, p < 0.001). Finally, 51.5% of vegetarians/vegans attained 12 or more years of education compared to 21.8% of omnivores (X 2 (1) = 61.531, p < 0.001). Vegetarians/vegans also had a significantly lower BMI compared to omnivores (M = 24.0, SD = 4.7 vs. M = 26.0, SD = 5.0; t(2423) = −4.555, p < 0.001). Similarly, vegetarians/vegans had significantly higher eating disorder psychopathology in the EDE-Q8 (M = 1.3, SD = 1.4 vs. M = 1.0, SD = 1.3; t(2440) = 2.619, p = 0.009), as well as slightly, but not significantly, higher depression scores in the PHQ-4 (M = 2.0, SD = 2.3 vs. M = 1.5, SD = 2.1; t(140) = 2.327, p = 0.21) scores compared to omnivores. More details are shown in Table  4 . In terms of somatic complaints, vegetarians/vegans and omnivores did not significantly differ in their experiences of exhaustion, gastrointestinal complaints, musculoskeletal complaints, cardiovascular complaints, or overall symptom strain (Table  5 ).

A binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to predict vegetarianism/veganism based on gender, age, education, population size, income, BMI, EDE-Q8 score, and PHQ-4 score. A significant regression model was found, χ 2 (8) = 835.0, p < 0.001: gender (female), (younger) age, (higher) education, (lower) BMI, (higher) PHQ-4 score, and (higher) EDE-Q8 score were significant statistical predictors of vegetarianism/veganism (Table  6 ).

The prevalence rate of self-defined vegetarians/vegans among the general German population found in the present investigation (n = 133, 5.4%) is comparable to that reported in an earlier German representative sample, in which the prevalence was found to be between 3% and 6% 14 . The current prevalence rate is also similar to those reported in US investigations 10 . A significant minority of omnivores reported that they would consider a vegetarian (11.2%) or vegan (5.9%) diet for themselves in the future showing that some people have an interest in adopting this kind of nutrition (“prospective vegetarianism”) 20 . Omnivores were more open to becoming vegetarian than to becoming vegan. However, meat consumption is still part of the traditional and social norm in Western societies 47 .

Regarding general attitudes toward vegetarian/vegan forms of diet in the general population, we noticed that both diet forms were considered expensive. Vegetarian and vegan diets are often perceived to be expensive 48 , and have therefore been associated with lower openness to try a vegetarian diet 49 . However, when compared to meat eaters, “true” vegetarians have been shown to report lower food expenditures 50 . While a vegetarian diet was considered to be healthy by most respondents, the majority did not think the same about vegan diets. This is in line with the German Nutrition Society which clearly states that a vegan diet cannot fulfill the daily recommendation for vitamin B12 intake and that supplementation is needed in most of the persons sticking on a vegan diet. Moreover, veganism is not recommended for pregnant and lactating women 51 . Additionally, almost two-third of the respondents said that vegans are made fun of and also a slight majority of respondents agreed that vegetarians are made fun of. Most respondents stated that vegetarian/vegan diet is less often associated with overweight. Vegan diet is not considered tasty. People have more negative beliefs about veganism than vegetarianism which is in line with literature. Literature also shows that vegetarians themselves report unfavorable social experiences 52 and biases with omnivores belittling their character 20 .

We found that female gender, younger age, lower BMI, higher depression scores, and higher eating disorder-related psychopathology were significantly associated with vegetarian/vegan diets. In terms of gender differences, this is entirely in accordance with the existing literature 1 , 8 , 14 . There is an extensive literature on the association between meat and masculinity 19 showing that men view meat as a more essential part of a proper diet. Thus it is not surprising that we found a higher proportion of females to be vegetarians/vegans. Similarly, we found that vegetarians/vegans were significantly younger than omnivores, as previously documented in multiple studies conducted among adults in Germany 14 , the UK, Canada, and the U.S 18 , 24 , 53 , 54 , 55 . Our findings are also in congruence with previous research showing an association between higher education and reduced meat consumption 14 , 15 , 16 , as over half of the vegetarians/vegans in our study attained 12 or more years of education compared to 22% of omnivores. Conversely, while previous research has documented greater affluence among vegetarians 14 , 17 , we found no difference in income distribution between vegetarians/vegans and omnivores in our sample. We also found vegetarians/vegans to have a lower BMI compared to their omnivorous counterparts; which is consistent with existing literature 10 , 24 , 25 , 26 .

Limited data is available on the associations between vegetarian diet and mental health 34 . While some studies have shown no significant differences in depressive symptoms between vegetarians and omnivores 5 , 28 , our results more closely align with those that have documented higher risk for 32 , 33 , 34 and more psychological symptoms associated with depression 30 , 31 among vegetarians/vegans. The prevalence of participants who screened positive for potential cases of depression and anxiety (PHQ-4 > 6) was 5.3% in omnivores and 8.5% in vegetarians/vegans. However, we cannot make any assumptions about causality. Do more depressed individuals select to follow a vegetarian/vegan diet or does following a vegetarian/vegan diet increase the risk for developing depression? It cannot be excluded that nutritional status may affect brain processes and may influence onset and maintenance of mental disorders 34 .

Our results allude to an association between choosing to subsist upon a diet excluding meat and displaying symptoms of disordered eating. The difference in EDE-Q8 scores remained even after adjusting for gender and age which are known to influence eating disorder symptoms. This result is in accordance to the majority of previous similar studies 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , even though the overall scores in the present sample were close to scores found in the general German population 45 . In terms of the potential link between vegetarianism and the development of eating disorders, evidence from three retrospective chart reviews 56 , 57 , 58 show that approximately half of all patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa report adhering to a vegetarian diet. Others have emphasized that this might represent a more orthorexic behavior with a fixation on health-conscious eating 59 . Furthermore, two-thirds of individuals with history of an eating disorder reported that their vegetarianism was related to the eating disorder as it allowed them to restrict caloric intake and increase feelings of control; however, the majority of these individuals also indicated that they adopted a vegetarian diet after the onset of their eating disorder 60 . Thus, vegetarianism may be a symptom of the disorder or a maintaining factor, rather than linked to its causal development 3 . As far as the clinical implications of our findings are concerned, our findings imply that health care professionals should keep the association between eating disorder psychopathology and vegetarian/vegan forms of diet in mind when dealing with individuals who choose this form of diet; especially in younger women. Similarly, affective status should be considered in the same group in question.

We did not find differences with regard to physical complaints between the groups of vegetarians/vegans and omnivores. Thus, although self-reported symptoms cannot be accounted for factual differences in health status between the two groups under investigation, we conclude that vegetarians did not differ in complaints of (somatoform) symptoms compared to the general omnivore population. In one German study vegetarians reported a better current health status than omnivores 14 . This finding is in contrast to another previous German investigation showing an increased prevalence for somatoform disorders in vegetarians 34 . Michalak et al . 34 found evidence for elevated prevalence rates in vegetarians not only for somatoform syndromes but also for depressive disorders, anxiety disorders as well as for eating disorders. This is the only study that did not rely on self-report but used clinical diagnoses of mental disorders as assessed with standardized diagnostic interviews and that controlled for socio-demographic characteristics. For depressive, anxiety and somatoform disorders the adoption of a vegetarian diet followed the onset of mental disorders and the authors hypothesized that a mental disorder increases the likelihood of choosing a vegetarian diet probably with the goal to positively influence the course of the disease.

There are some limitations to consider. The response rate was relatively low (46.9%), which is, however, common in general population research. The current use of vegetarian and vegan diets was self-reported, and it is known from previous studies that self-identified vegetarians do not necessarily completely abstain from meat 6 , 19 . Furthermore, we define “vegetarian/vegan” as a person who sticks to that diet for at least two weeks, which means, that this definition is rather lenient. Therefore, also short-term vegetarians/vegans might be within the survey. We did not assess the motivation for following a vegetarian or vegan diet. A further limitation lies in the lack of assessment of objective measures (e.g., BMI) and the reliance on self-reports. Additionally, considering that this was a cross-sectional study, and that the vegetarian/vegan group was mostly young females, it may be that young females are more prone to having an eating disorder regardless of the diet they follow. Thus, vegetarianism/veganism may be a symptom or maintaining factor of the disorder rather than linked to its causal development. Due to the cross-sectional design in this study, no conclusions can be made regarding the causality of the association between diet and the examined individual differences. In contrast, the strengths of our study are the inclusion of a large representative sample of the German population and the use of standardized questionnaires to assess depressive, eating disorder, and somatic symptoms.

Taken together, the prevalence of current and self-defined vegetarianism and veganism in the present research was 5.4% which is comparable to other German and international studies. People’s attitudes toward vegetarians and vegans still point toward some biases. Finally, the present survey showed that there are not only differences between self-defined vegetarians and omnivores in socio-demographics, but also in levels of eating-related symptoms and potential cases of depression and anxiety.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Change history

10 november 2020.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

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G.P. and M.d.Z. designed the study. G.P. and C.R. conducted the statistical analyses. M.N., E.B., C.H., and A.H. participated in instrument selection and development of the questions on veganism and vegetarianism. The first draft was written by C.R. All authors reviewed the manuscript and accepted the final version.

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Paslakis, G., Richardson, C., Nöhre, M. et al. Prevalence and psychopathology of vegetarians and vegans – Results from a representative survey in Germany. Sci Rep 10 , 6840 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63910-y

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Happy but Vegetarian? Understanding the Relationship of Vegetarian Subjective Well-Being from the Nature-Connectedness Perspective of University Students

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Vegetarianism constitutes not only a diet, but also a way of life and social movement currently in expansion worldwide. Since meat consumption negatively influences the environment, vegetarianism helps to preserve the health of ecosystems enhancing people’s well-being. Yet vegetarians tend to experience lower subjective well-being. Potential reasons for this include social stigmatization, underlying mental conditions, or perception of the world as unfair. In this paper, we explore the possibility that vegetarians who feel connected to nature enjoy higher subjective well-being. To do so, we explore a sample comprising 1068 undergraduates and relate vegetarian commitment, accounting for vegetarian identity and vegetarian self-assessment scale, with connectedness to nature for three different measures of subjective well-being, life satisfaction, emotional well-being, and subjective vitality. We find that vegetarian subjective well-being is better understood through individuals’ connection with the environment. Our results suggest that connectedness to nature is positively related, and vegetarian commitment generally associates negatively to subjective well-being except for vegans who have greater emotional well-being and vitality than other food identities. However, vegans experience greater life satisfaction while highly connected to nature. Lacto-pesco and lacto-ovo vegetarians also enjoy greater emotional well-being and vitality, respectively, while highly connected to nature. Considering vegetarian scale, individuals rating higher experience increased subjective vitality when highly connected to nature. Therefore, we propose that further policy developments in the area should consider the role of connectedness to nature in order to achieve higher levels of subjective well-being, while actively promoting pro-environmental behaviors such as vegetarianism.

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The motivations and practices of vegetarian and vegan Saudis

Knowledge, attitudes, and factors associated with vegetarianism in the Saudi Population

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Daniel Rosenfeld who contributed to this work with various kinds of support and valuable insights. The manuscript has been enriched thanks to the comments of the people attending to the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, held in September 2019 in Granada, particularly Dr. Chitra S. Nair and Dr. Tithi Bhatnagar. Usual disclaimer applies.

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación and the European Regional Development Fund (project ECO2017–86822-R); the Regional Government of Andalusia and the European Regional Development Fund (projects P18-RT-576 and B-SEJ-018-UGR18) and the University of Granada (Plan Propio. Unidad Científica de Excelencia: Desigualdad, Derechos Humanos y Sostenibilidad -DEHUSO-).

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Krizanova, J., Guardiola, J. Happy but Vegetarian? Understanding the Relationship of Vegetarian Subjective Well-Being from the Nature-Connectedness Perspective of University Students. Applied Research Quality Life 16 , 2221–2249 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-020-09872-9

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Received : 18 June 2020

Accepted : 29 September 2020

Published : 08 October 2020

Issue Date : October 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-020-09872-9

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Articles on Vegetarianism

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What kind of diner are you? 6 types of diners who avoid plant-based meat dishes

David Fechner , Griffith University ; Bettina Grün , Vienna University of Economics and Business , and Sara Dolnicar , The University of Queensland

Climate labels similar to cigarette packet warnings could cut meat consumption – new research

Jack Hughes , Durham University ; Mario Weick , Durham University , and Milica Vasiljevic , Durham University

Vegan diet has just 30% of the environmental impact of a high-meat diet, major study finds

Michael Clark , University of Oxford and Keren Papier , University of Oxford

Are vegan pet diets as unhealthy as they’re claimed to be? Here’s what the evidence says

Alexandra Whittaker , University of Adelaide ; Adriana Domínguez-Oliva , Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (México) , and Daniel Mota-Rojas

Egg shortage: a nutritionist on the best egg alternatives

Hazel Flight , Edge Hill University

My kid has gone vegetarian. What do I need to know (especially if they’re a picky eater)?

Evangeline Mantzioris , University of South Australia

Vegetarians more likely to be depressed than meat-eaters – possible reasons

Chris Bryant , University of Bath

Vegetarian diets may be better for the planet – but the Mediterranean diet is the one omnivores will actually adopt

Nicole Allenden , University of New England ; Amy Lykins , University of New England , and Annette Cowie

Vegan and vegetarian diets may lack certain nutrients – here’s how to get more of them

Martin Warren , Quadram Institute ; Kourosh Ahmadi , University of Surrey ; Liangzi Zhang , Quadram Institute , and Maria Traka , Quadram Institute

Why Seventh-day Adventists are so often vegan or vegetarian

Tamas Lestar , University of Winchester

The meat paradox: how your brain wrestles with the ethics of eating animals

Sarah Gradidge , Anglia Ruskin University and Magdalena Zawisza , Anglia Ruskin University

‘Sallets’ – how to eat healthily the 1600s way

Catie Gill , Loughborough University and Sara Read , Loughborough University

Diners more likely to choose a vegetarian option when 75% of the menu is meat-free – new research

Beth Parkin , University of Westminster

Individual dietary choices can add – or take away – minutes, hours and years of life

Olivier Jolliet , University of Michigan and Katerina S. Stylianou , University of Michigan

Does a plant-based diet really help beat  COVID-19 ?

Duane Mellor , Aston University

Anti-nutrients – they’re part of a normal diet and not as scary as they sound

Jill Joyce , Oklahoma State University

Diet resolutions: 6 things to know about eating less meat and more plant-based  foods

Mariana Lamas , Northern Alberta Institute of Technology

Singapore approves cell-cultured chicken bites – who will be the first to try them?

Vegetarian and vegan diet: five things for over-65s to consider when switching to a plant-based  diet

Taibat (Tai) Ibitoye , University of Reading

My talk with Jane Goodall: vegetarianism, animal welfare and the power of children’s advocacy

Clive Phillips , The University of Queensland

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• Animal welfare
• Climate change
• Meat eaters
• Plant-based diet

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Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Professor in Food Distribution and Policy, Dalhousie University

Associate Professor in Sociology, University of East Anglia

Lecturer in Social Psychology, Lancaster University

Lecturer in Criminology, The Open University

Senior research associate, University of Technology Sydney

Senior Lecturer in Science Communication, The University of Western Australia

Honorary Research Associate, Department of Psychology, University of Bath

Professor of History and Philosophy, and Deputy Dean Research (Faculty of Arts), University of Adelaide

NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University

PhD Candidate, Biological and Experimental Psychology, Queen Mary University of London

Senior Visiting Fellow, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Sydney

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, University of South Australia

Medical Doctor and Clinical Senior Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Professor, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia

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Vegetarianism may be in the genes, study finds

Allison Aubrey

Lots of factors influence what we eat, everything from taste preferences, to budgets and culture. New research suggests genetics may also play a role. Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Lots of factors influence what we eat, everything from taste preferences, to budgets and culture. New research suggests genetics may also play a role.

People are motivated to try a vegetarian diet for different reasons – from ethical and religious, to potential health and environmental benefits. But many people have a hard time sticking with it. In fact studies show many self-reported vegetarians actually do consume some animal products.

"A lot of people who want to be vegetarian are perhaps not able to," says Dr. Nabeel Yaseen , of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "We wanted to know if genetics is part of the reason," he says.

Yaseen and his collaborators compared the DNA of about 330,000 people, using data from the UK Biobank initiative. The study included 5,324 vegetarians, who had not eaten any animal flesh or products derived from animal flesh for at least one year.

They found 34 genes that may play a role in adhering to a strict vegetarian diet. And they identified 3 genes that are more tightly linked to the trait.

"What we can say is that these genes have something to do with vegetarianism," Yaseen says. "Perhaps vegetarians have different variants of these genes that make them able to pursue a strict vegetarian diet," he explains. The study is published i n PLOS ONE , a peer-reviewed science journal.

Deciphering the genetic role is not exactly an easy riddle to solve. Humans have thousands of genes and there are millions of tiny variations in DNA building blocks, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs,) where you can see differences between individuals.

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To identify SNPs that are statistically associated with the particular trait of adhering to a vegetarian diet, Yaseen and his colleagues did a genome-wide association study .

"You're looking for markers in the genome, basically trying to see if a certain trait tracks with a certain region of the genome," explains Yaseen. When they found a SNP associated with vegetarianism, they looked to see the genes around it in the same area.

Of the three genes most strongly associated with vegetarianism, the authors say two of them (known as NPC1 and RMC1) have important functions in lipid – or fat – metabolism. The study can't answer exactly how genetic differences could shape or influence vegetarians, but Dr. Yaseen has some ideas.

"One hypothesis – which is highly speculative – is that maybe there's a lipid nutrient, or nutrients, in meat that some people need and others don't," he says.

Lots of factors influence what we eat, everything from our taste preferences, to our budgets to our culture. So, the idea that food choice is also influenced by genetics is not surprising, Yaseen says.

But this is just the first step. He says more research is needed to determine which genes – and which variants – may be critical.

Yaseen points out the current study is limited to white Caucasian participants. "Ethnicity is a confounding factor," he says. For example, if the study had included people from India, where vegetarianism is more common, you might see genes or SNPs that are associated with being Indian rather than being a vegetarian.

How to eat more like a vegetarian — even if you're not one

The idea that some people might find it easier to follow a vegetarian diet due to genetic predisposition is interesting, says Christopher Gardner , a food scientist at Stanford University. And he points out that people don't need to go completely vegetarian to see benefits.

He points to research that shows impacts on human health and planetary health would be significant, even if people just decreased the amount of meat they eat each week.

"There is clearly an important benefit – and probably more realistic benefit – of reducing meat without cutting it out completely," Gardner says.

This story was edited by Jane Greenhalgh

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Forty-five years of research on vegetarianism and veganism: A systematic and comprehensive literature review of quantitative studies

Affiliations.

• 1 Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pontificia Comillas. ICADE, Spain.
• 2 Business Management Department, Spain.
• 3 Quantitative and Statistical Analysis Department, Spain.
• PMID: 37223710
• PMCID: PMC10200863
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16091

Meat production and consumption are sources of animal cruelty, responsible for several environmental problems and human health diseases, and contribute to social inequality. Vegetarianism and veganism (VEG) are two alternatives that align with calls for a transition to more ethical, sustainable, and healthier lifestyles. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we conducted a systematic literature review of 307 quantitative studies on VEG (from 1978 to 2023), collected from the Web of Science in the categories of psychology, behavioral science, social science, and consumer behavior. For a holistic view of the literature and to capture its multiple angles, we articulated our objectives by responding to the variables of "WHEN," "WHERE," "WHO," "WHAT," "WHY," "WHICH," and "HOW" (6W1H) regarding the VEG research. Our review highlighted that quantitative research on VEG has experienced exponential growth with an unbalanced geographical focus, accompanied by an increasing richness but also great complexity in the understating of the VEG phenomenon. The systematic literature review found different approaches from which the authors studied VEG while identifying methodological limitations. Additionally, our research provided a systematic view of factors studied on VEG and the variables associated with VEG-related behavior change. Accordingly, this study contributes to the literature in the field of VEG by mapping the most recent trends and gaps in research, clarifying existing findings, and suggesting directions for future research.

Keywords: 6W1H; Systematic literature review; Veganism; Vegetarianism.

© 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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Vegetarian Dietary Patterns in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease

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We are experiencing a worldwide epidemic of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Their treatment has become a major public health burden. These chronic diseases are closely related to lifestyle and dietary choices. Vegetarian dietary patterns seem to be particularly effective This ...

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