Abstract
Objective
Veganism may serve as a socially acceptable means to restrict food intake and disguise pathological eating behaviours. Studies that include vegan participants typically group them with other meat avoiders (e.g., vegetarians), potentially masking risk factors unique to veganism.
Method
We addressed this issue by recruiting two Amazon Mechanical Turk samples of 110 vegan and 118 omnivore participants, with comparable gender composition. We aimed to examine whether vegans showed higher disordered eating than omnivores, and if motives for pursuing a vegan diet impacted disordered eating. We assessed disordered eating using the Eating Attitudes Test, the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire, and the Eating Pathology Symptom Inventory.
Results
Vegans displayed more pathological eating behaviours than omnivores, which was significantly predicted by cognitive restraint. However, body dissatisfaction levels were higher in omnivores than vegans. Diet motives did not influence vegans’ disordered eating.
Conclusion
We propose vegans have high levels of cognitive restraint, possibly due to their intention to avoid animal products. In turn, cognitive restraint subscales in eating disorder measures might be over-pathologising rates of eating disorders in vegans. Future research should monitor the progression of people’s eating-related attitudes and behaviours before and after they transition to veganism to establish whether veganism increases the risk of disordered eating, or vice versa.
Level of evidence
IV, cross-sectional study.
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Data availability
Deidentified data for Sample 1 and Sample 2 is publicly available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/utyxa and https://osf.io/qz8e6/ respectively.
Code availability
Not applicable.
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CM created the study idea, and CM, EM, and GS drafted the manuscript. CM, EM and NT assisted with the design and statistical analyses.
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This study was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC; reference number 20514).
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Participants were informed their participation would result in de-identifiable data for publication.
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McLean, C.P., Moeck, E.K., Sharp, G. et al. Characteristics and clinical implications of the relationship between veganism and pathological eating behaviours. Eat Weight Disord 27, 1881–1886 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-021-01330-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-021-01330-1