Health- or Environment-Focused Text Messages as a Potential Strategy to Increase Plant-Based Eating among Young Adults: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Previous plant-based diet (PBD) adoption strategies have primarily focused on health rather than environmental rationale and meat reduction rather than plant-based protein promotion. In this study, we explored the effect of a theory-informed text-message intervention on dietary intentions and behaviors in young adult omnivores and the potential explanatory role of PBD beliefs, subjective norm, self-efficacy, moral norm, and health and environmental values. Participants completed baseline questionnaires and reported dietary intake before being randomly assigned to receive 2–3 health- or environment-focused text messages per week for eight weeks and then repeated baseline assessments. Although we did not see significant changes in meat or plant protein intake, we did observe a marked decrease in intentions to consume animal protein and a marginal increase in fruit and vegetable consumption intention. We identified subjective norms, self-efficacy, and moral satisfaction as the strongest predictors of changes in intention to consume animal or plant protein. Although few group differences were observed, those receiving environment-focused text messages experienced a greater change in values and were more likely to increase vegetable intake. Messages that improve sustainability awareness and provide practical adoption strategies may be part of an effective strategy to influence PBD intake among young adults.

Health- or Environmental-Focused Text Messages to Increase Consumption of a Sustainable Diet among Young Adults: Importance of Expected Taste

“…While the observation that baseline measures for the environmental friendliness of both meat and plant protein were associated with decreases in animal-protein-consumption intention may initially seem counterintuitive, it may be a reflection of the importance of sustainability to these participants. Furthermore, overall ratings for the environmental friendliness of meat went down during the study [ 26 ], suggesting that the messages effectively educated participants about the environmental impact of meat production.…”

“…Every other week, participants were asked to respond to rate how likely they were to focus more on plant-based eating the following week. The text of the messages is described elsewhere [ 26 ].…”

“…To assess perceptions of plant-based diets generally, participants responded to the question, “In my opinion, a plant-based diet is…” followed by a series of 5-point semantic differential items, including a single item for “Not tasty/Tasty” [ 28 ]. In addition, participants completed questions regarding their food consumption intention, personal values (health and green consumer values), self-efficacy, and subjective norms, as described previously [ 26 ]. Age, height, weight, gender, ethnicity, educational level, and annual household income data were also collected.…”

“…Median age, education, and income of the sample were 23 years old, bachelor’s degree, and $50,000-$74,999 annual income, respectively. The complete demographic characteristics, survey, and content of the text messages are reported elsewhere [ 26 ].…”

“…We previously reported that consumers receiving biweekly text messages decreased the intention to consume animal-protein foods and increased the intention to consume some plant-based foods based on differences between baseline responses and postintervention responses eight weeks later. The text messages were more likely to increase consumption intention among participants with higher subjective norms, moral satisfaction, and self-efficacy regarding the consumption of plant-based foods [ 26 ]. Because of the salience of sensory barriers to eating plant-based foods, we hypothesized that the expected taste of plant-based foods influenced the efficacy of the text messages.…”