Social pressures, outlook and behaviour
In the past the great majority of vegetarians were not socialised into giving up meat. Instead they critically inspected their own eating behaviour and society's food production systems and they decided to stop eating meat. Now, social pressures play a more important part and reduced meat-eating is more than a moral reflex in a minority. Those social pressures are particularly strong within the 12 to 24 year old sector and they include teenage idealism, group identity (or "clubbishness") and body image.
From a study in America it was claimed that 15% of the United States of America's 15 million college students eat vegetarian meals during a typical day. For example, at a college canteen in Ohio, 20% of the meals that were served were vegetarian. Forty eight percent of the female college students stated that vegetarianism was "in", and the corresponding figure for males was 33%. Many of the college women were restricting their consumption of meat.
A poll in the United Kingdom reported that one third of the country's 4.3 million non-meat eaters were children under 16. This age split came as a surprise, and it is probably due to two things. Firstly, the growing link between teenage idealism and the vegetarian concept in the individual's mind, and secondly the perpetration of that link amongst a large number of young teenagers by vegetarian promotion campaigns.
Teenage idealism is a normal healthy urge to change and improve the world. Young teenagers are drawn to extremist views by their simplicity and their "innocence", and they are prone to becoming engaged with apocalyptic guilt. The trials of puberty bring on a fierce sentimentality and an intense emphatic squeamishness. Animals become a focus for all kinds of emotions, and with directed thinking this leads to vegetarianism.
The Vegetarian Society in the United Kingdom has been criticised on numerous occasions for exploiting teenage idealism. For example, in 1991 the Committee on Advertising Practice criticised their use of an anti-meat advertisement which showed a famished African child and a caption saying "Putting meat on your plate takes the food from hers". In 1992 the Advertising Standards Authority condemned a Vegetarian Society leaflet which described in detail the suffering of animals being slaughtered. The leaflet was said to be "capable of causing distress and exploiting those at such an impressionable age". The Vegetarian Society produces a magazine for children called Greenscene which, it is said, "makes no constructive use of teenage idealism, but is carefully calculated to harness sentimentality, self-doubt, guilt and clubbishness. The troubled compassion of children is manipulated to put them off meat altogether, and a vast opportunity is wasted" (Purves, 1990).
Vegetarianism is also promoted in schools through a campaign called SCREAM (School Campaign for Reaction Against Meat). This includes videos and information packs which are sent to schoolteachers, and lecture tours which focus on farming and abattoir practices. Some young teenagers become, what has been referred to as, "vege warriors". Vege-warriors want to convert the whole family to vegetarianism and "they cannot stand living in a house in which the fridge contains a pork chop" (Times, 1990). When asked why they are vegetarian they are encouraged to reply "Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends".
A potential reason for being or becoming vegetarian is that one's friends are vegetarian, and it is important not to feel left out. This might be supported to some extent by the finding that adolescent female vegetarians (and semivegetarians) reported knowing more people who were vegetarian than did female non-vegetarians. However, they did not have more vegetarian friends (Worsley and Skrzypiec, 1996a). So, presumably, "clubbishness" is not an important feature amongst 16 year old vegetarians.
Parents, families and friends are, in general, tolerant of vegetarian practices, but, a third of vegetarians agreed that it was difficult to avoid eating meat at home. Adopting the label "vegetarian" can help some adolescents cope more successfully with pressures from family or peers without having to explain their motives. Concern about animal welfare would be regarded by some parents as a better motive than slimming, and in this respect, teenage vegetarianism could be a front for covert weight reduction in some individuals.
Teenage vegetarian women appear to hold quite different views about health and about animals compared to non-vegetarians. Their outlook of the wider world differs too. For example they have been found to be more pessimistic about environmental issues, they placed less trust in scientific solutions to environmental problems, they valued equality more in relationships between the sexes, they were more concerned with being slim and they tended to restrict their energy intake more ( Worsley and Skrzypiec, 1996a). They were also more likely to be influenced on how they dressed or behaved by what they saw on television.
Heather Morton, head of nutrition and social health at the University of South Australia, analysed 45 hours of three Australian television series; Neighbours, Home and Away and A Country Practice. The findings were telling. In every 20 to 25 minute episode there were about six scenes featuring eating and drinking, and the characters spent a quarter of their time eating and drinking. When the characters talked about food and drink more than half their statements were, according to Dr Morton, rubbish. All the food-related remarks concerned body image and slimming. All were made by women, and only 43% were scientifically correct.
People who are well-informed about nutrition and have a good understanding about nutrient density of foods tend to have more negative attitudes about meat and meat products (Shepherd and Towler, 1992). This could indicate that for the future as nutritional education improves, positive attitudes to meat consumption could decline. People with the better nutritional knowledge also planned on eating less meat in the future, and generally their recent behaviour conformed to this plan. Associated with this, females had a higher nutritional knowledge and they had a more negative predisposition towards consuming meat. An important reason for the gender difference is that females are more body conscious and have a greater dissatisfaction with their body image than males (Maude et al, 1993). Twenty six per cent of normal weight Australian girls think that they are overweight, whereas only 6% of normal weight boys consider that they themselves are overweight.
Australian 16 year old females who have a leaning towards vegetarianism drink more low fat milk than their non-vegetarian counterparts, which also suggests that they may be more concerned about body weight (Worsley and Skrzypiec, 1996a). They also seem to go in more for extreme weight loss behaviours (such as use of laxatives, induced vomiting) and for restrained eating.
Red meat consumption is regarded as fattening by 30% of full and semivegetarians and by 13% of non-vegetarians (Worsley and Skrzypiec, 1996b). However, taking exercise and drinking lots of water are more common ways of inducing weight loss, and about half the girls skip meals. The concern about body image starts to relax when women reach the age of 25 (Kenny and Adams, 1994).
There is an interesting paradox between social behaviour and an individual's leaning towards vegetarianism. Vegans can be cut adrift from society because of their views and they can lead isolated lives. Vegetarians, on the other hand, are far from anti-social. In a survey of North American vegetarians it was found that they socialised more than non-vegetarians as shown by their greater frequency of entertaining, going out with friends and joining organisations (Freeland-Graves et al, 1986a). It is not known whether semivegetarians are any more or less introverted than non-vegetarians.
In some instances peoples' intentions on eating and their behaviour are not always closely linked. An extreme example would be when someone who is dieting or is semivegetarian goes on a binge which is totally contrary to his or her overall aims. It has been shown that the overall correlation between intention and behaviour in respect to eating high fat foods is high (r values up to 0.78), which suggests a good level of personal discipline in this respect. Males tend to show least consistency between their beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviour when it comes to meat and meat products (Table 10).
Table 10 Correlation coefficients between beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviour in men and women
| Beliefs vs Attitudes |
Attitudes vs Intentions | Intentions vs Behaviour | |
| Meat | |||
| Males and females Males 35-54 years* |
0.70 0.65 |
0.64 0.51 |
0.73 0.55 |
| Meat Products | |||
| Males and females Males 35-54 years* |
0.63 0.51 |
0.59 0.51 |
0.78 0.74 |
* age group at greatest risk from coronary heart disease. (Shepherd and Towler, 1992)
The correlations between beliefs and attitudes give an indication of the relative importance of beliefs in forming attitudes, and hence in determining behaviour. Beliefs about taste were the most important belief feature and were more important than anything to do with health, fat content, cost or nutritional content of meat.
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Rural Affairs Coordinator
Sector Performance Policy
MAF Policy
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
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