Demographic and Socioeconomic Correlates of Disproportionate Beef Consumption among US Adults in an Age of Global Warming
www.mdpi.com
Concern for the environment when making dietary choices has grown as the contribution of the food sector to global greenhouse gas emissions becomes more widely known. Understanding the correlates of beef eating could assist in the targeting of campaigns to reduce the consumption of high-impact foods. The objective of this study was to identify the demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral correlates of disproportionate beef consumption in the United States. We analyzed 24-h dietary recall data from adults (n = 10,248) in the 2015–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Disproportionate beef consumption was defined as an intake greater than four ounce-equivalents per 2200 kcal. Associations of this indicator variable with gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, family income, diet knowledge, and away-from-home meals were assessed using logistic regression, incorporating survey design and weighting. Disproportionate beef diets were consumed by 12% of individuals, but accounted for half of all beef consumed. Males were more likely than females (p < 0.001) to consume these diets. This relationship was seen in all bivariate and multivariable models. Older adults, college graduates, and those who looked up the MyPlate educational campaign online were less likely (p < 0.01) to consume a disproportionate beef diet. While almost one-third of reported consumption came from cuts of beef (e.g., steak or brisket), six of the top ten beef sources were mixed dishes: burgers, meat mixed dishes, burritos and tacos, frankfurters, soups, and pasta. Efforts to address climate change through diet modification could benefit from targeting campaigns to the highest consumers of beef, as their consumption accounts for half of all beef consumed.
  • Exeous@lemmy.world
    117·
    1 year ago

    This is the same study posted somewhere else. The survey is flawed in that they asked what people ate in the last 24 hours.

    That simply means that those people ate a lot in the last 24 hours. Should have been over a week or a month to get a better distribution.

    “We analyzed 24-h dietary recall data from adults (n = 10,248) in the 2015–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).”

    • persolb@lemmy.ml
      221·
      1 year ago

      Exactly. In a world where people at a big steak dinner once a week, you’d see a similar result.

      • Steeve@lemmy.ca
        2·
        1 year ago

        Why would everyone be eating the big steak dinner the day before they were asked this survey question though?

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
      13·
      1 year ago

      I responded to your comment before, but didn’t sufficiently think it through, so I deleted my previous response.

      You raise a good point, and they do indeed acknowledge this flaw in the study:

      One limitation of this work is that it was based on 1-day diet recalls, so our results do not represent usual intake. Averaging both days of data available on the NHANES would not address this problem, would reduce our sample size by 15%, and would mix recall methods between an in-person interview (day 1) and one done on the phone (day 2). Still, as a check, we examined day 2 and found the same associations with gender and MyPlate guidance.

    • Steeve@lemmy.ca
      4·
      1 year ago

      I don’t totally agree. I’d be interested in grouping the data by “response day of the week”, but given that the sample size is 10k (which is huge in nutrition science) and that they didn’t all respond at the same time, there’s definitely enough response time variability to reduce short term seasonality.

      Honestly if you asked over the previous week or month you’d probably just get less accurate responses and it’d skew the data even more.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.mlEnglish
      41·
      1 year ago

      That’s such a leading method for gathering the data. You just ate the one cheeseburger you have every couple of months right before the study? Welp, I guess you’re the person responsible for all the beef purchases now!

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
      26·
      1 year ago

      If that was all that was flawed… who actually takes time to do nutritional surveys? People who care about nutrition. And the current fad is that you should eat less meat. So a disproportionate number of them are going to under represent how much meat they eat. So it should say, only 12% of people who answered this survey were honest.

    • Kstile@midwest.social
      7·
      1 year ago

      Glad I’m not the only one that read it that way. Shame on me for reading the internet before the coffee kicks in.

  • aDuckk@lemmy.world
    17·
    1 year ago

    Burgers Georg, who lives in a cave and eats over 10000 burgers a day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.

  • silence7@slrpnk.netM
    11·
    1 year ago

    FWIW, I’m not a huge fan of MDPI; they’ve got something of a reputation for being shoddier on peer review than some other journals. I’d look for replication elsewhere before fully trusting this.

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
    103·
    1 year ago

    This just sounds like another version of the 80:20 rule or the Pareto principle.

    “The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes”

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
      15·
      1 year ago

      It is. This sounds like a hit piece. You could use this argument to make anything sound bad.

  • idkwhatimdoing@sh.itjust.works
    127·
    1 year ago

    Most surprising here, imo, is that only 12% of the population eats more than 4oz. of beef per day. That honestly feels low to me.

      • idkwhatimdoing@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        1 year ago

        Running the math on my own habits, I don’t think so, but I just figured some people are enough burgers alone to push the numbers higher than that

      • idkwhatimdoing@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that 10% of the population ate a 4oz burger for lunch every single day. Not saying it’s good or not a lot, but just thought more people did it

    • Newtra@feddit.de
      11·
      1 year ago

      I think it’s because people also have preferences for other types of meat. E.g. I always prefer chicken, but it’s uncommon here so usually I go with the cheapest option: pork. I’m appalled at how high I’ve let my meat consumption slip, but this paper would still classify me as not excessive beef consumption.

    • idkwhatimdoing@sh.itjust.works
      23·
      1 year ago

      What do you mean? I eat a lot of steak and am unlikely to change that too much, but these are just numbers, and they seem to check out.

        • enkers@sh.itjust.works
          4·
          1 year ago

          It’s not that the study methods are bogus, but that they don’t actually tell us what the headline says, which, incidentally, is not the title of the study. The actual title of the study is: “Demographic and Socioeconomic Correlates of Disproportionate Beef Consumption among US Adults in an Age of Global Warming”

          And from the abstract:

          The objective of this study was to identify the demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral correlates of disproportionate beef consumption in the United States.

          So the study actually does do a good job of that, because 24-hr recall is sufficient to tell us the relative rates of high beef consumption in different population segments.

          What it’s not good at differentiating is determining whether it is fewer individuals consuming beef more frequently or a greater number of individuals consuming beef less frequently.

          That is to say, 10% of the population consuming >4oz of beef every day compared to 20% of the population consuming >4oz of beef every 2nd day would appear the same. It still does tell us how much beef is being consumed by the population, however, so the data isn’t useless.