Você é o que você come? Dieta, personalidade e percepção ambiental

Abstract

Our ancestors suffered various kinds of selective pressures that shaped the diet of modern humans. Given this, in our dietary history, we have gone through dietary diversification, culminating in an omnivorous diet. In addition to omnivory, other important aspects of our dietary composition involve more current issues, such as diets based on ethical concepts such as vegetarianism and veganism. In this context, the present study aimed to understand how food choices are constituted for diet composition and its relationship with environmental concern. For this purpose, 242 volunteers participated, of which 118 were omnivores, 73 vegetarians and 51 vegans of both sexes, over 18 years old. Data collection was done through online questionnaires, from which we investigated the motivation for diet composition (through the Food Choice Questionnaire), personality (using the Big Five) and sociodemographic data. Data were analyzed using nonparametric statistics. Participants on a vegetarian or vegan diet were found to have significantly more motivations such as "Animal welfare concerns" and "Environmental impact on food" than omnivores. On the other hand, the omnivores had among their main motivations “meat flavor”, “habit”, “that's how I was brought up”, “It's healthier”. Regarding environmental concerns, “Climate Change”, “Extinction of Animal Species”, “Environmental Impact of Livestock”, “Unsustainable Diet, Excessive Meat Consumption”, “Water Shortage” were marked significantly more by vegans and vegetarians. In addition, vegans were more concerned with introducing genetically modified organisms into the food chain than vegetarians and omnivores. Regarding personality and eating decisions, there was a difference for extroversion and openness traits, with the average of vegans significantly higher than omnivores. From the observed results, it can be concluded that individual differences are an important component in understanding diet decisions today.