title: The process of exiting vegetarianism: an exploratory study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The experience, reasons, and contexts associated with leaving vegetarianism were explored.
  
  
  METHODS
  Interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 19 ex-vegetarians and 15 continuing vegetarians.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Exiting vegetarianism is similar to the process of leaving other important individual identities, including exiting diets containing meat. It is a process, not an event, and partially a response to inconvenience, particularly when the person's table companions were not vegetarians. Major life changes and declines in self-perceived health provided occasions to reassess life choices, including the vegetarian commitment. Ex-vegetarians interpreted their vegetarianism as a transition to a new, healthier diet. Including a comparison group of continuing vegetarians revealed that the ex-vegetarians were more likely to have become vegetarians as a result of concern about the well-being of animals and the environment, not animal rights, a value more difficult to compromise.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Exiting processes show the five central food values of taste, health, time, cost, and social relationships undermine people's commitment to a diet chosen largely for moral reasons.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Menzies
authors.forename: Judy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sheeshka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000941:ethics; D017087:Animal Rights; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D014676:Diet, Vegetarian / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D009864:Ontario; D012931:Social Environment; D055815:Young Adult