The Association Between Personality Traits and Dietary Choices:
Vegetarian diets & poor mental health are linked to higher psychological distress before age 30.
Vegetarian and vegan diets are increasing in popularity. Although they provide beneficial health effects, they may also lead to nutritional deficiencies. Cognitive impairment and mental health disorders have a high economic burden. Vegetarians have lower self-esteem, lower psychological adjustment, less meaning in life, and more negative moods than people who eat meat.
Increasing evidence shows how diet may play a role in improving health including mental health. Personality may influence the type of diet and consequently the prognosis of medical and psychiatric conditions.
Personality disorders are widespread psychiatric conditions that affect ∼12% of the general population (1). According to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), they are defined as stable impairments of different aspects of personality including identity, self-direction, and interpersonal skills.
Pathologization is the attempt to define a particular condition – as an example, Vegetarianism and Veganism – as a pathological condition, and people who choose these lifestyles as ill. Such efforts can be seen in the article written by Michalak, Zhang and Jacobi which offer different “pathological” explanations. As an example, the thesis that a vegetarian/vegan diet causes omega-3 and vitamin B-12 deficiencies that affect brain processes and therefore “increases the chance for the onset of mental disorders.”
A therapist specializing in working with vegans, found that the same admirable traits that led them to choose this lifestyle are traits that may create a vulnerability to depression and anxiety in the complex world we live in. Qualities like a high sense of justice, critical point of view of the world and of themselves, social awareness, empathy, courage – are just a few.
I’ve noticed this in people who are vegans and this confirms what I have seen. In 1909, the neuroscientist Charles Loomis Dana coined the term “zoophilpsychosis” to describe a unique mental illness, distinct psychosis, which is characterized by heightened concern for animals. The discourse about the new disease quickly broke the boundaries of the academy, and a few months later that year, the New York Times headlined: “Passion for animals – really a disease”. The body of the article explained that people suffering from “zoophilpsychosis” are ill people and that their care for animals involves hardening their hearts to humans.
In their 2001 study, Perry and his colleagues argued that Vegetarianism among adolescents might be a signal for preventive intervention suicidal behavior, Baines and his colleagues concluded that vegetarian and vegan women are healthier in body but more vulnerable to depression and mood disorders and Michalak, Zhang and Jacobi in their 2012 article, argued that the percentage of people with depression and anxiety disorders was higher among vegetarians (and vegans) than meat-eaters.
What does the Bible say about eating meat?
But do not eat flesh with its life, its blood.
Genesis 9:4 TS2009
‘An everlasting law throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you do not eat any fat or any blood.’ ” Levitcus 3:17 TS2009
When יהוה your Elohim enlarges your border as He has promised you, and you say, ‘Let me eat meat,’ because you long to eat meat, you eat as much meat as your being desires.
Deuteronomy 12:20 TS2009
One indeed believes to eat all food, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.
Romans 14:2 TS2009
And while they were still not believing for joy, and marvelling, He said to them, “Have you any food here?” And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And taking it He ate in their presence.
Luke 24:41-43 TS2009
And יהוה spoke to Mosheh, saying, Speak to the children of Yisra’ěl, saying, ‘Do not eat any fat, of bull or sheep or goat.
Leviticus 7:22,23 TS2009
“Speak to the children of Yisra’ěl, saying, ‘These are the living creatures which you do eat among all the beasts that are on the earth:
Leviticus 11:2 TS2009