Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
4-2024
Abstract
Due to rising popularity of vegetarianism in recent years, research interest has surged in examining the relationship between vegetarianism and psychological health. However, given inconsistent findings in prior research, the answer to whether practicing vegetarianism is associated with better or worse psychological health is still elusive. The present investigation aimed to demonstrate that vegetarians are not homogeneous in terms of psychological experiences, such that it is crucial to consider the motives behind vegetarians’ dietary choice when examining their psychological health. In a survey study with 266 vegetarians and 104 omnivores, it was shown that health vegetarians displayed higher levels of disordered eating as compared to moral vegetarians and omnivores. Mediation analyses further revealed that, among vegetarians, health motivation was positively correlated with disordered eating tendencies, indirectly linking it with poorer psychological health; moral motivation was positively correlated with prosocial behavior, which in turn predicted better psychological health. These findings have implications for understanding the psychological health of vegetarians with different dietary motives and for developing interventions to promote their psychological health.
Keywords
Health motivation, Mental health, Moral motivation, Vegetarianism, Well-being
Discipline
Applied Behavior Analysis | Health Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition
Volume
43
Issue
1
First Page
1
Last Page
21
ISSN
1606-0997
Identifier
10.1186/s41043-024-00534-2
Publisher
BioMed Central
Citation
1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-024-00534-2