I read a study that approximately 10% of people have been vegetarian, and only 2% are at any given time. It seems that vegetarianism has a low retention rate.
Are there studies that try to determine the main factors that make people drop vegetarianism?
Those statistics may be misleading. Some people only practice vegetarianism for particular times such as fasting for religious reasons or financial reasons. Many of my non-vegetarian family members didn't eat meat while flatting at university to simply save money.
Other people stop being vegetarian once they leave their parents home or travel abroad, particularly international students from India. Some see eating meat as cultural assimilation in Western countries and even remain vegetarian when visiting their family. If they're raised vegetarian rather than choosing to do so I'm not sure this is "quitting".
Another consideration is that ovo-lacto vegetarian is assumed for vegetarians so many people on a stricter diet may not identify with the term. Does becoming vegan mean they wouldn't be counted as vegetarian here?
I wouldn't consider many of these people to have "tried" or "quit" vegetarianism. I'd be very cautious of interpreting or designing these studies due to potential confounding variables.
- The process of moving away from a vegetarian or vegan diet is multifaceted and complex, and the same appears to be true for anticipating a return to one of these diets.
- Former vegetarians/vegans were asked to give the primary reason they stopped eating the diet. The frequency with which the reasons for lapsing were mentioned were: unsatisfied with food (293), health (237), social issues (120), inconvenience (115), cost (56), lack of motivation (56), and other (228).
- Former vegetarians/vegans who said they were interested in resuming the diet were asked what they would need in order to do so. In order of most common, the requirements for re-adoption were related to: food (convenience, taste, etc.) (125), motivation/incentive/dedication (58), social (52), cost (more money or less expensive food) (47), health (35), and other (8).
- Many individuals gave multiple reasons for why they left the diet or what they would need to resume it (or both), indicating that there is no single factor at play. While the majority of participants provided just one answer to the question at hand, the answers they chose varied substantially. Again, this suggests that there is no one approach that advocates should consider to address these concerns.
