Food and body perception in ethically vs. body image motivated vegetarian women

The adoption of plant-based diets for seemingly health-based reasons may be a risk factor for eating disorders. If so, stronger endorsement of weight-control vs. ethical goals should be associated with characteristic responses to stimuli related to these goals, such as images of meat dishes and attractive bodies. The present study is the first to comprehensively investigate food and body perception in women who follow vegetarian or vegan diets primarily for either ethical reasons or body-image-related concerns. We measured food choice motivations, eating disorder symptoms, self-consciousness, appetitiveness ratings for meat and vegetable stimuli, appeal ratings for male and female body images, and the electrophysiological correlates of perceptual, attentional and emotional-motivational processing of food and body stimuli. We found that reported food choice motivations differedbetween body-image-motivated vegetarians (weight control) and ethically-motivated vegetarians (ecological welfare and sensory appeal). Body-image-motivated vegetarians showed more eating-disorder symptoms (restraint) and rated female bodies as less appealing than ethically-motivated vegetarians. Both groups rated images of meat as less appetitive thanthose of vegetables and images of male bodies as less appealing than those of female bodies. Body-image-motivated vegetarians had overall shorter N1 peak latencies for all types of images than ethically-motivated vegetarians, as well as enhanced P2 amplitudes for female relative to male bodies,while the ethically-motivated vegetarians showed enhanced P2 amplitude for male relative to female bodies. Meat stimuli elicited larger P2 and LPP amplitudes than vegetable stimuli in body-image- but not ethically-motivated vegetarians. Our findings show novel support for altered perceptual, attentional and affective processing of female bodies and meat stimuli in vegetarian women with body image motives, suggestingthat they may be at risk of developing or maintaining eating disorders through their dietary choices.