Eating and health behaviors in vegans compared to omnivores: Dispelling common myths.

Abstract Studies comparing eating behaviors in individuals avoiding meat and other animal products to omnivores have produced largely inconclusive findings, in part due to a failure to obtain sufficiently large samples of vegan participants to make meaningful comparisons. This study examined eating and health behaviors in a large community sample of dietary vegans (“vegans”), compared to omnivores. Participants ( n  = 578, 80.4% female) completed an online questionnaire assessing a range of eating- and other health-related attitudes and behaviors. Vegans (62.0%, n  = 358) and omnivores (38.1%, n  = 220) were comparable in terms of demographics. Vegans scored significantly lower than omnivores the Eating Disorder Examination - Questionnaire (multivariate p p p p p η p 2 ranging from η p 2