Young people more open to ditching meat than previously thought – new study

Eating meat and other animal products can have negative effects on our health, the environment and animal welfare.

Eating a more plant-based diet rich in wholefoods could prevent 27% of human deaths worldwide, according to the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems. It could also spare the lives of more than 80 billion animals a year and cause 75% less environmental damage.

While some European governments, such as Denmark, are introducing legislation that incentivises citizens to buy and eat plant-based food, progress is slow. That is partly due to the difficulty in changing adults’ minds about meat.

However, our new study shows that young people might be more open to ditching meat. We asked more than 1,000 young adults in the UK (with an average age of 23) whether they had thought about stopping eating meat when they were still at school. Half of our participants (48.5%) said they had thought about this. Surprisingly, 50.4% of those participants actually did stop eating meat for some period of time.

This finding opens a range of possibilities for encouraging and supporting people to eat more sustainably.

If the childhood and teenage years are a window when lots of people are already questioning what they eat, an important next step is to understand how schools, councils and peer groups can support those young people who are interested in trying to eat healthier, more ethical and sustainable diets.

In our study, we asked 1,063 young adults from the UK whether they had ever thought about stopping eating meat during childhood (up until the end of secondary school). Of the participants who said they had thought about stopping, half of this group (50.4%) did stop for days (15.3%), weeks (17.1%), months (20.7%), years (21.5%) or permanently (25.5%).

In a follow-up survey, we asked 461 young adults (all of whom said they had thought about stopping eating meat when they were younger) to tell us more about their experiences.

We wanted to know why people first thought about stopping eating meat. Participants had a range of reasons – some talked about feeling disgusted by meat, others had a “meat epiphany” where they realised where meat came from. We also wanted to know if there was anything that explained why some young people were able to stop. We found that parental support was key – it was more important than all the other psychological factors we looked at, including people’s attitudes towards animals and their disgust towards meat.

We also found that most of the young people who had stopped eating meat during their school years returned to eating it (89.5%) at some later stage. This was for a range of reasons. Some stated that they had concerns for their health, others missed the taste of meat. Many talked about not wanting to cause an inconvenience to their family. They told us that their friends, schools and parents were all more supportive of them when they wanted to start eating meat again compared to when they had first stopped.

These findings suggest promising avenues for encouraging people to eat more sustainably. Our results suggest that a lot of people might already be thinking about reducing their meat intake when they’re young.

To do so, those who don’t have as much autonomy over their food choices need the support of their parents and schools. Many participants said that their new diet was an inconvenience for their family. This suggests that one place to offer support is in the family home. Understanding ways of teaching families to cook meals that can be easily adapted to meet their children’s dietary and nutritional requirements, without breaking the bank, could make a huge difference.

Cost is another important concern for families in this case. While research has shown that plant-based meat imitation products can be more expensive than their animal-based equivalents, on average shoppers spend less on a whole foods plant-based grocery shop than an animal-based trolley.

Healthy options

Some parents may worry that plant-based diets aren’t healthy for children and teenagers. However, research shows that carefully planned plant-based diets can support healthy living at every age and provide a diversity of dietary fibres important for gut health. In a recent review examining ten studies with more than 1,500 children, medical experts determined there is not enough evidence to say that vegan diets have negative effects on health, and that vegan children’s growth and nutrition was similar to that of omnivorous children.

However, dietary experts note that some key nutrients (such as iron, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium) essential for healthy development of tissues, metabolic and immune function and bone health, are naturally low in plant sources. As such plant-based diets and intake in young people should be monitored by health professionals. In spite of this, research has shown that shifting from a typical western diet to a more plant-based diet rich in wholefoods from the age of 20 could add a decade to life expectancy.

One limitation with our study is that we asked young adults to think back to their childhood. These kinds of retrospective methods aren’t perfect, as people sometimes mis-remember details from the past. An important next step will be to ask children and teenagers today what they think about this issue right now.

Despite this limitation, we think these findings offer a promising opportunity for anyone interested in supporting young people to advocate for themselves, the planet and other animals.

Luke McGuire receives funding from the ESRC.

Natalia Lawrence receives funding from the BBSRC (Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club)