Determinants of Exerciser Environmentalism to Lower Meat Consumption in the Practice of Climate Stewardship

IntroductionAnimal husbandry for human consumption is a contributing factor of greenhouse gas accumulation. As country-sustainable dietary guidelines recommend, reducing meat overconsumption can substantially mitigate world greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, more than 35 years of evidence indicates a lack of awareness, willingness to alter dietary habits, and disbelief that meat consumption contributes to unwanted climate change. MethodsSix hundred participants (exercisers, n = 300; nonexercisers, n = 300) were sampled randomly from the crowdsourcing database of Prolific and stratified across the age groups of 18-27, 28-37, 38-47, 48-57, and 58-100 with 30 males and 30 females per age group. Differences between exercisers and nonexcercisers were examined for environmental value orientations, beliefs, norms, and intentions related to climate degradation awareness and environmental friendliness in the context of an integrated value belief norm theory (VBN), theory of planned behavior (TPB), and health concern variable (VBNTPB) model. ResultsThe results of three VBNTPB causal pathways indicated that exercisers differed significantly from nonexercisers, as compared to the VBN causal pathway, in predicting climate stewardship intention to reduce meat consumption when controlling for the sociodemographic factors of age, ethnicity, and education. Each VBNTPB causal pathway variable was positively and significantly related to the next, confirming an environmentalism pathway originating from biospheric, altruistic, and egoistic environmental value orientations. These values determined general proenvironmental worldview beliefs, which in turn predicted behavior-specific human meat reduction beliefs for awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, the moral obligation of personal norm, normative belief of social norm, and the behavioral beliefs of attitude and health concern, to conclude intention of lowering meat consumption to benefit Earths climate, and explained 85.4-87.3% of intention variance comparative to 83.2% in the VBN causal pathway. The additional variance explanation via attitude, health concern, and social norm in the VBNTPB model overcame the nonsignificant personal norm prediction of intention in the VBN causal pathway. The common language effect size for each causal regression analysis indicated that exercisers and females would have a higher value on the outcome variable, ranging from 51.37%-72.87% and 50.92%-53.93%, respectively, when holding the values of other predictor variables constant, indicating a large effect size. Exercisers current behavior was 100% more likely to consume a low-meat diet than nonexercisers to benefit Earths climate (OR = 2.04). ConclusionThe VBNTPB model is more effective in predicting climate stewardship. The outcomes indicate that individuals who regularly exercise within the range recommended by the U.S. Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization, to sustain the best health, are a worldwide population that society may leverage--to spur social movement in consuming less meat to prevent unwanted climate change. The rational evaluation of the behavioral beliefs of attitude and health concern, and the normative belief of social norm, are important behavioral antecedents that influence physically active individuals to overcome inadequate personal norm to conduct climate stewardship through dietary modification. These antecedents in the context of self-interest should be fostered and reinforced in humankind to promote environmentalism. Sociodemographic trends indicate that these antecedents should be taught throughout an individuals interest in pursuing higher levels of educational credentials, at an early age, and throughout lifes progression.