Original scientific paper
Personality Traits, Motivation and Bone Health in Vegetarians
Jasminka Bobić
; Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health, Zagreb, Croatia
Selma Cvijetić
; Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health, Zagreb, Croatia
Irena Colić Barić
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, Laboratory for Food Chemistry and Nutrition,
Zvonimir Šatalić
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, Laboratory for Food Chemistry and Nutrition,
Abstract
Vegetarian diets attract more and more attention due to growing concerns about health, ecology and/or animal welfare in general population. The main purpose of this paper was to examine whether vegetarianism could be associated with some specific personality characteristics, with the emphasis on the main motivational factors which determined acquiring the diet. Since the nutrition is also an important determinant of bone health we additionally analyzed the association between personal characteristics and bone density. On a sample of 109 adult vegetarians of both sexes we applied Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (including Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Lie scale), bone densitometry and questionnaire on dominant motives for dietary choices. The results on overall personality characteristics, bone density and basic anthropometric measures were within expected values for age. Vegetarian men had significantly more fractures during lifetime and lower neuroticism scores than women. Dominant motivational factors for acquiring vegetarianism were moral values. In addition »moral vegetarians« showed more pronounced introversion compared to »health vegetarians«, lending further support to the argument that personality plays an important role in the structure of motivation.
Keywords
personality; neuroticism; extraversion; bone density; motivation; vegetarians; osteoporosis
Hrčak ID:
89423
URI
Publication date:
5.10.2012.
Visits: 4.355 *