Understanding the Meat-Masculinity Link: Traditional and Non-Traditional Masculine Norms Predicting Men’s Meat Consumption

ABSTRACT

Conformity to masculinity ideology predicts men’s meat consumption and willingness to reduce their meat intake, but it is unknown which specific masculine norms account for these relationships. This study investigated which traditional and non-traditional masculine norms predict meat consumption, red and processed meat consumption, and willingness to reduce meat consumption in 557 Australian and English males. Men who support the use of physical violence and place high importance on sex ate more meat. Willingness to reduce was highest among men with gender egalitarian views. Targeting these specific masculine norms may be important for mitigating men’s overconsumption of meat.

KEYWORDS:

• Conformity to masculine norms
• gendered eating
• meat-masculinity link
• men’s red and processed meat consumption
• willingness to reduce meat consumption

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the research participants and anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

Authors’ contributions

Lauren Camilleri: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, writing – original draft. Peter Richard Gill, Andrew Jago, Jessica Scarfo, Melissa Kirkovski: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, writing – review and editing.

Availability of data and materials

Data is available upon reasonable request at https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-zbe-dzn4.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03670244.2024.2361818

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.