Promoting Environmental Behaviors: Applying the Health Belief Model to Diet Change

ABSTRACT

Very few Americans follow a plant-based diet (PBD), despite its environmental and personal benefits. To better understand motivations and intentions to adopt a PBD, this online survey study sampled 514 participants across the US, utilizing the Health Belief Model (HBM) and subjective norms from the Theory of Planned Behavior. Both self-efficacy and subjective norms are significant positive predictors of intention to eat a PBD. The highest perceived benefits of adopting a PBD are health and well-being, while the highest perceived barrier is difficulty breaking current eating habits. A parallel mediation model determined that subjective norms was the strongest mediator between meat consumption and intention to adopt a PBD. Future research should explore the influence of HBM variables on intention, including cues to action and perceived threat. Those promoting a PBD should address the barrier of habit-breaking, develop self-efficacy, and increase visibility of the diet’s health, environmental, and ethical benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Plant-based diet
• Health Belief Model
• subjective norms

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge and thank Hannah Ball for her assistance with this manuscript. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 2019 annual meeting of the Western States Communication Association in Seattle, WA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant awarded by the Chapman University Office of Graduate Studies in Spring 2018. Funding source did not play a role in study design or execution.