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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1566712
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring Socio-Cultural Factors in Human Nutrition: The Importance of Multidimensional Approaches.View all articles
Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to Understand the Adoption of Vegetarianism among Females in Saudi Arabia
Provisionally accepted- 1King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- 2Department of Clinical Nutrition, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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The adoption of vegetarian diets is increasing worldwide, including among females in Saudi Arabia. This increase has not yet been explained. The present study explores the factors influencing the intention to follow a vegetarian diet among Saudi women using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) framework.An online self-administered questionnaire was distributed between July 2023 and January 2024. A total of 998 Saudi females participated, including both vegetarians (n = 417, 41.8%) and non-vegetarians (n = 581, 58.2%), who answered questions relating to their sociodemographic characteristics, awareness and perceived understanding of vegetarian diets, awareness of and adherence to dietary guidelines, dietary habits, and TPB predictors. Multivariable linear regression was used with dietary guideline awareness, body mass index, self-rated perceived weight, socioeconomic status index, and the TPB constructs as predictors to explain the intention to follow a vegetarian diet (outcome).Results: Attitude (standardized β-coefficient = 0.29, p < 0.001), subjective norms (standardized βcoefficient = 0.10, p < 0.001), and perceived behavioural control (standardized β-coefficient = 0.08, p = 0.03) were significantly and positively associated with the intention to follow a vegetarian diet. However, dietary guideline awareness did not significantly influence the intention (standardized βcoefficient = -0.04, p = 0.1). Socioeconomic status index was negatively correlated with the intention to adopt a vegetarian diet (standardized β-coefficient = -0.073, p = 0.018). Body mass index showed no significant correlation with vegetarian diet intention (standardized β-coefficient = -0.05, p = 0.091).Conclusions: TPB constructs (attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control) and socioeconomic status influence the intention to adopt a vegetarian diet, although awareness of dietary guidelines and body mass index do not.
Keywords: vegetarianism, Vegetarian diet, Plant-based diets, vegetarian, vegan, Theory of Planned Behavior
Received: 25 Jan 2025; Accepted: 08 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alkhaldy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Areej Alkhaldy, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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