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(Potential) Reasons hindering a vegan lifestyle: percentage of participants who stated the appropriate reason. Not all options were available for all groups.
Source publication
Introduction
Although vegan and vegetarian diets and lifestyles differ significantly from each other, among other things, notably in their respective consequences regarding animal welfare and their ecological impact, vegans and vegetarians are often grouped together and usually compared to omnivores in psychological research. Considering that vegan...
Citations
... Within the context of ED risk and the ecological and climate crisis, it is increasingly relevant to consider the rise of vegetarianism in response to the climate crisis (Mayrhofer et al., 2024), and how this may imply greater health risks as research suggests greater risk in developing orthorexia nervosa in lacto-vegetarians (Dittfeld et al., 2017;Parra-Fernández et al., 2020). Orthorexia nervosa, a proposed eating disorder (Hyrnik et al., 2016), is characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with consuming healthy or "pure" foods to the detriment of overall well-being and might correlate with eco-anxiety about food choices. ...
... Concerns about one's food choices and the impact on climate change might lead some individuals to enact rigid eating patterns that parallel orthorexia nervosa behaviors. Indeed, a recent review suggests that following a vegetarian diet, which is increasingly chosen due to ecological and sustainability concerns (Mayrhofer et al., 2024), is associated with orthorexic eating behaviors (Brytek-Matera, 2021). EREC scores correlated more strongly with the Knowledge subscale, which contains items regarding the superiority of one's diet compared to others, than with the other EHQ-21 subscales. ...
Introduction
Urgent calls for research on the relationship between climate change concerns and eating disorder risk have been made. This study aimed to validate an Italian version of the Eating-Related Eco-Concern Questionnaire (EREC), a brief unidimensional measure of eating behaviors related to eco-concern.
Methods
Six hundred and sixty-three adults (85% females, mean age 37 ± 12 years) completed the EREC, Climate Change Worry Scale (CCWS), Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q), Eating Habits Questionnaire for orthorexia nervosa symptoms (EHQ-21), and questions on dietary habits and motivations, and past experiences of extreme climate events.
Results
Confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that the original one-factor model showed acceptable fit to the data after including the error covariation between two pairs of items. Internal consistency was adequate, and EREC scores correlated positively and strongly with CCWS scores. Participants scored significantly lower in EREC than in CCWS, indicating greater climate-related concerns in general terms than relating specifically to eating. While EREC was unrelated to EDE-Q scores, weak-to-moderate correlations were observed with EHQ-21 subscale and total scores. Pro-environmental and/or ethical reasons for current diet and personal experience of extreme climate events were associated with significantly higher EREC scores.
Discussion
The Italian EREC appears to be a valid and reliable tool for the screening of eating-related concerns and behaviors related to climate change. Ecological concerns may represent a healthy adaptive response, but the EREC can serve as a valuable tool to identify individuals whose eating behaviors related to eco-concern might warrant further clinical attention due to potential risks of developing rigid or unhealthy patterns.
... Vegans and vegetarians generally share fundamentally similar motivations due to animal rights, animal welfare, health and ethical concerns, and approaches to environmental issues and the lifestyles they shape regarding these (Mayrhofer et al. 2024). Pollution of pastures and grassland and consumption of limited resources due to the use of animals, and pollution such as methane gases produced by ruminant animals are generally among environmental concerns. ...
Food goes through many stages until it is ready for consumption and interacts with the consumer. Food ethics, a field of applied ethics, guides and contributes to the evaluation of all these stages within an ethical framework. Unless the decisions individuals make regarding which foods to consume and in what quantities are not passed through an ethical filter, they may be affected by social dynamics and cannot go beyond existing habits. However, an awareness of the extent to which the consequences of this decision will affect nature and other relevant stakeholders helps shape a sustainable consumption pattern. At this point, food ethics serves as an important road map for consumers to create their dietary patterns. Sustainable choices are of vital importance in the short and long term, as meat consumption is still a factor that determines social status and the maintenance of meat as a gender policy may continue to harm other weak and vulnerable groups. Within the framework of social justice, individuals and governments have important duties to protect the rights of all stakeholders and to make a more livable environment possible for both the current generation and future generations. For this reason, it is very critical to prevent meat from being seen as a “value” and to purify it from meanings such as power and masculinity. The importance of cooperation to improve the present and make the future more sustainable is becoming more important day by day.
