Major
Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Minor(s)
French; Marine Affairs
Date
5-2020
Keywords
Plant-based; Vegetarian; Nutrition; Dieting; Eating Disorders; Climate Change
Abstract
KATIE SAUSE (Environmental and Natural Resource Economics)
The Realities of Plant-Based Dieting
In modern society, dieting has become a social norm, however, due to improper nutritional education, the transition to limiting diets can lead to adverse health effects. The societal pressures to adhere to extreme beauty standards lead individuals, especially women, to adopt diets based on their incorrect notions about nutrition and health. When this occurs, the dietary goal becomes weight loss rather than health improvements. This paper focuses on two plant-based diets: vegetarianism and whole foods-plant based. To capture the short- term bodily impacts from transitioning to a plant-based diet from a predominantly meat diet, a personal experiment following vegetarianism was conducted to complement the research. According to previous studies, the main health concern for plant-based diets is a Vitamin B12 deficiency, especially if pregnant or nursing (Mayo, 2019). Furthermore, the more restrictive the diet, the greater the risk of developing deficiencies that may catalyze future health problems such as strokes or congenital defects (Tuso et al., 2013 and Sebastiani et al., 2019). These studies also find that the greatest benefit of plant-based dieting is improved cardiovascular health (Tuso et al., 2013). Moreover, the main social group to misuse the health concepts behind dieting is college- aged females. There are two major ways in which society may benefit from a shift towards plant-based eating: decreased health care costs and improvements in environmental health. In order to have the environmental benefits realized, there must be a widespread reduction in carnivorous trends within the United States, as well as a shift towards more eco-friendly lifestyles. For one to successfully transition to a plant-based diet, there must be a high degree of economic and nutritional planning due to the increased health and opportunity costs incurred from extreme dietary changes.