Vegetarians tend to be slimmer and less extroverted than meat eaters,
study finds

Date:
June 15, 2020
Source:
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
Summary:
The less animal products someone consumes, the lower his body
mass index on average and the less he tends to be extroverted. A
connection with depressive moods as other studies had found could
not be confirmed.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== According to a survey by the Allensbach Institute, more than 6.1 million Germans stated last year that they were vegetarians, 400,000 more than
two years earlier. A large-scale study at the Max Planck Institute for
Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in cooperation with the
University Hospital of Leipzig has now examined in almost 9,000 people
how this form of nutrition is related to the body and the psyche --
regardless of age, gender and level of education.


==========================================================================
It was found that the rarer the proportion of animal food in a person's
diet, the lower their body mass index (BMI) on average and thus their
body weight.

One reason for this could be the lower proportion of heavily processed
foods in the plant diet. "Products that are excessively rich in fat
and sugar are particularly fattening. They stimulate the appetite and
delay the feeling of satiety. If you avoid animal foods, you consume
fewer such products on average," explains Evelyn Medawar, first author
of the underlying publication, which has now been published in the
journal Nutrients. In addition: Vegetarian food contains dietary fibres
and has a positive effect on the microbiome in the intestine. This is
another reason why they could fill you up earlier than those made from
animal ingredients. "People who eat predominantly vegetable foods may
therefore absorb less energy," Medawar adds. In addition to a changed
feeling of satiety, lifestyle factors such as more sport and greater
health awareness could also play a decisive role.

For the BMI it also seems to make a difference which animal products a
person feeds on. If it is predominantly so-called primary animal products,
i.e. meat, sausage and fish, the person usually has a higher BMI than
someone who eats primarily secondary animal products, i.e. eggs, milk,
dairy products, cheese and butter. In the former case the correlation
is statistically significant.

Medawar uses an example to illustrate what this could mean for nutrition:
"A person with a 1.2 point lower BMI on average either completely avoids certain animal products, such as the primary ones, and is on a vegetarian
diet. Or she continues to eat meat and fish, but less often. Whether
nutrition is ultimately the cause of lower body weight or whether other
factors are responsible for it cannot be determined from the data. A
follow-up study in cooperation with the University Hospital Leipzig will
now shed light on this.

Nutrition and personality The researchers also found out that vegetarian
or vegan nutrition is also related to personality. Especially with
one of the five major personality factors, extroversion. It was shown
that people with predominantly plant-based foods on their diet are
more introverted than those who mainly fed on animal products. "It is
difficult to say what the reason for this is," says Veronica Witte. "It
could be because more introverted people tend to have more restrictive
eating habits or because they are more socially segregated because of
their eating habits." Here, again, further studies should follow on how
people identify with the characteristics of their diet.

However, they could not confirm that a plant-based diet is associated
with a tendency towards neurotic behaviour, as other studies
suggested. "Earlier analyses had found that more neurotic people were
generally more likely to avoid certain groups of foods and to behave
more restrictively. We focused here solely on the avoidance of animal
products and could not observe any correlation," explains study leader
Veronica Witte.

In a third part, they finally concentrated on the question of whether a predominantly plant-based diet is more often associated with depressive
moods.

Here previous studies had also suggested a relationship between the
two factors. "We could not detect this correlation," says Witte. "It is possible that in previous analyses other factors had blurred the results, including the BMI or conspicuous personality traits that are known to be associated with depression. We accounted for them," said Witte explaining
a possible reason for the different results. In addition, the plant-based
diet is now more common and more accepted and not anymore restricted to
a certain group.

The scientists had investigated these connections within the so-called
LIFE project, a broad-based study in cooperation with the University
Hospital of Leipzig. They determined the personal diets by means of questionnaires in which the participants were asked to fill in how often
they had eaten the individual animal products in the last 12 months --
from "several times a day" to "never." The personality traits such
as extroversion and neuroticism were assessed by means of a so-called personality inventory (NEOFFI), while depression was assessed by means
of the so-called CESD test, a questionnaire that records various symptoms
of depression.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Max_Planck_Institute_for_Human_Cognitive_and_Brain Sciences. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Evelyn Medawar, Cornelia Enzenbach, Susanne Roehr, Arno Villringer,
Steffi G. Riedel-Heller, A. Veronica Witte. Less Animal-Based
Food, Better Weight Status: Associations of the Restriction of
Animal-Based Product Intake with Body-Mass-Index, Depressive
Symptoms and Personality in the General Population. Nutrients,
2020; 12 (5): 1492 DOI: 10.3390/ nu12051492 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115748.htm

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