Relationships between vegetarian dietary habits and daily well-being

The goal of the present study was to examine differences in the daily experiences of vegetarians and non-vegetarians. At the end of each day for two weeks, a convenience sample of American undergraduates described how they felt and how they thought about themselves that day, and they described the events that occurred to them that day. Multilevel modeling analyses (days nested within persons) found that vegetarians (individuals who avoided all meat and fish, n = 24) reported lower self-esteem, lower psychological adjustment, less meaning in life, and more negative moods than semi-vegetarians (individuals who ate some meat and/or fish, n = 56) and omnivores (individuals who did not restrict their intake of meat or fish, n = 323). Vegetarians also reported more negative social experiences than omnivores and semi-vegetarians. Although women were more likely than men to identify as vegetarians and semi-vegetarians, controlling for participant gender did not change the results of the analyses. The differences we found are consistent with other research that suggests that vegetarians are less psychologically well-adjusted than non-vegetarians. The implications of the present results for understanding relationships between dietary habits and well-being are discussed.