Men are less likely to be vegans than women because the diet is not seen as masculine, a study suggests.
There is evidence that men are far less willing than women to give up steaks and barbecues for a trendy vegan diet.
To understand why, researchers asked 539 people to rate four vegan meals on a scale of how suitable they were for men or for women.
The vegan burger, carbonara, goulash and salad were described, on average, as being more appropriate for women to eat than men.
But the study suggests a vegan diet could appear less emasculating for men if it used more red-blooded language.
Men are less likely to be vegans than women because the diet is not seen as masculine, a study suggests (stock image)
Half the people in the study were given masculine descriptions of the food, like a ‘beast burger’ rather than a ‘wow-factor burger’ or a hearty goulash instead of a gourmet one.
The man-friendly descriptions of the food included the words smoky, greasy and juicy, with the burger and carbonara described as coming in a ‘massive portion’ for ‘even the biggest appetite’.
People given manly descriptions of the vegan meals rated them as less suitable for women than men given neutral descriptions like ‘creamy’ and ‘delicious’.
This suggests more masculine marketing of vegan foods could make them seem less girly.
But even though people saw vegan foods as less feminine when they had masculine names and descriptions, they still rated the meals as slightly more suitable for women than men.
Unfortunately they were also no more likely to say they would like to eat the vegan meal, would be willing to try it, or thought it would taste good.
Alma Scholz, who led the study from the University of Würzburg but is now based at Stockholm University, said: ‘Men might be less inclined to consume vegan food due to the need to appear masculine.
‘Perhaps if we used even more masculine language to describe this food, we could make men more willing to eat it.’
Figures show that just 3.82 per cent of men are vegan, while almost one in 10 (9.4 per cent) women now follow the diet
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Communication, asked people to rate the suitability of vegan food for men of women from one to seven.
A score of four meant it was not particularly suitable for either sex, with a higher score meaning it was more suitable for men and a score below four meaning it was more suitable for women.
When a burger was described to half the volunteers using neutral words, the average rating was 3.68.
But the rating rose to 3.98 from people, to whom it was described using more masculine words – meaning it was almost seen as a meal equally suitable for both men and women.
Men appear very sensitive to whether food might make them look like less of a man, based on the study findings.
Women’s ratings of whether vegan food is more suitable for males or females did not significantly change when masculine descriptions were used – but men’s did.
The study authors note that meat is culturally associated with strength and masculinity, which might make a vegan diet a hard-sell.
Content source – www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com
