Exploring everyday life dynamics in meat reduction - A cluster analysis of flexitarians in Denmark
Professor Bente Halkier has, together with Thomas Bøker Lund published the article "Exploring everyday life dynamics in meat reduction – a cluster analysis of flexitarians in Denmark" in the journal "Appetite".
Flexitarians are attracting increasing attention in the research on meat reduction. But there has been limited focus on comprehensive understandings of a broader range of dynamics that can work as barriers and facilitators for meat reduction.
In this article, the authors use social practice theory (SPT) as a comprehensive approach to barriers and facilitators in meat reduction in everyday life. They present an analysis of data from a representative Danish cross-sectional survey. The article show, first, that Danish flexitarians can be divided into four distinct clusters in accordance with combinations of everyday facilitators and barriers.
Second, they show that the prevalence of these classes varies considerably depending on how long people have been flexitarians. They argue that the patterns in this variation indicate that over time people transition to other classes where barriers
to plant-rich eating become less significant, and routinization emerges in different ways.
Finally, third, the authors show that flexitarians do report eating less meat than consumers who label themselves as eating meat with no restrictions. They also highlight that the difference is relatively modest. Indeed, meat intake is still quite common even in classes where routinization is highest. Throughout the paper, similarities and differences between the SPT framework and another recent framework, the COM-B model, that also provides a comprehensive approach to the understanding of behavioural change are discussed.
Read the article (open access): 'Exploring everyday life dynamics in meat reduction - A cluster analysis of flexitarians in Denmark'