Identifying attitudes and their ability to decrease meat consumption among non-vegetarians from the NutriNet-Santé cohort

International audienceINTRODUCTION: Previous studies identified different dimensions of attitudes towards a decrease in meat consumption, but they did not assess which one had the greater ability to change this consumption.OBJECTIVES: This cross-sectional study aimed to describe sociodemographic profiles associated with attitudes and the ability to decrease meat consumption in a large sample of French adults.METHODS: This study included 30,318 non-vegetarian participants from the NutriNet-Santé cohort. Twelve dimensions of attitudes towards meat consumption evolution such as taste, health, ethics, environment, animal welfare or social pressure, have been assessed using a web-based questionnaire. For each dimension, attitude and its corresponding ability to change meat consumption were evaluated with two 5-point Likert scales, respectively. Participants were classified into three different groups: no concern, concern but no ability to change, concern with ability to change. Associations between sociodemographic profiles and involvement levels in changing were evaluated using multivariable polytomic logistic regressions.RESULTS: Higher concerns towards varying protein sources, health and environment appeared to be factors associated with the reduction of meat consumption. Sex, age and educational level were more likely to be associated with attitudes having the ability to reduce meat consumption. For example, a dislike for meat taste was more likely to have the ability to reduce meat consumption in women compared to men (concern with ability to change compared to no concern: OR =3.19, 95% CI =[2.65 ; 3.84]).CONCLUSION: In a context of food sustainability, our results improved the understanding of the determinants associated with a change in meat consumption