But Why Vegan? Study Reveals Why Some People Go Plant-based



What makes some people choose a plant-based diet? Is it the animals? Their health? The environment? A What makes some people choose a plant-based diet? Is it the animals? Their health? The environment? A study from the University of California has found out. The results can arm advocates of a vegan lifestyle with scientific insights and new guidance on how to better construct and target vegan campaigns.



By Kam Kompani,

April 22, 2020

Health, the environment, and animal rights are three leading reasons people in Western societies give for following a plant-based diet. Yet little research has been done to distinguish empirically between the three motives, and to identify what kind of messaging resonates best with different people, according to a study published earlier this month.

To investigate what motivates people to adopt a plant-based diet, the researchers surveyed over 8,000 individuals, less than 2.5% of whom were either vegetarian or vegan. The survey contained over a dozen items designed to evaluate which of the three rationales pushes the most people toward a plant-based diet.

Overall, the authors observed that health, environmental, and animal rights considerations are all compelling reasons to go plant-based.

However, “health” was found to be the main reason why some people are seduced by a vegan diet. Among the respondents who identified as neither vegan nor vegetarian, 75% ranked “health” as their primary motive for considering to eat less meat.

The study also assessed 260 characteristics — such as demographic features; personality traits and habits; involvement in volunteer activities; online behavior and preferences; and social behavior — to see if a person’s profile can indicate which rationale for going plant-based would resonate the most with them.

Over 21 variables — which included agreeableness, loving and valuing peace — correlated with all three motives for eating plant-based.



People driven primarily by health motives are the least likely to respond to vegetarian advocacy. (Image by Silviarita from Pixabay)

The profiles of people influenced by health reasons were shown to be more conventional (e.g., male, hard-working, obedient, life satisfaction, and religiosity), while the only profiles that correlated solely with environmental motives were “openness to experience” and “having visited a museum.” Interestingly, “being involved in a religious organization” and doing “crafts” were uniquely related to animal rights motives.

Study Sample

The study included four samples:

Sample 1: 1006 undergraduates attending a U.S. public university (11 self-identified as vegan and 44 as vegetarian).

Sample 2: 1004 Amazon MTurk Workers (17 self-identified as vegan and 25 as vegetarian).

Sample 3: 5478 Dutch participants drawn from the Longitudinal Internet Studies of the Social Sciences (69 self-identified as vegan).

Sample 4: 739 undergraduate participants (8 reported to follow a vegan diet and 27 vegetarian).

Difference Between a Plant-based and Vegan Diet

The following explanation is provided by Healthline:

“Many people use the term “plant-based” to indicate that they eat a diet that either entirely or mostly comprises plant foods. However, some people may call themselves plant-based and still eat certain animal-derived products. (…) Being vegan reaches beyond diet and also describes the lifestyle that one chooses to lead on a daily basis. Veganism is generally defined as living in a way that avoids consuming, using, or exploiting animals as much as realistically possible.”

In this article we used the terms “vegan” and “plant-based” interchangeably to refer to diets that are primarily plant-based and void of all animal products.

Implications for Vegan Advocacy

The study also evaluated the effectiveness of vegan advocacy flyers that promote health, environmental, and animal rights considerations. People motivated by environmental and animal rights convictions were swayed by all three types of flyers, whereas participants who were motivated by health were generally not impacted by vegan advocacy.

“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 researchers suggested.



Science Has Spoken: All Popular Weight-loss Diets are the Same

Adding that: “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 and compliant with a vegetarian diet.

“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 , female and liberal, 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 have argued that vegetarian advocacy should always focus on ethical motives. The more practical sector of plant- based diet advocacy 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.”



Study: Hopwood CJ, Bleidorn W, Schwaba T, Chen S (2020). “Health, environmental, and animal rights motives for vegetarian eating“. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230609.