Intersecting perspectives: Advocating for sustainable family meals across generations

• Published in: Appetite 2024-10, Vol.201, p.107618, Article 107618
• Main Authors: Knobl, Vanessa, Mata, Jutta
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Diet; Family meal; Reverse socialization; Sustainability
• ISSN: 0195-6663; 1095-8304; 1095-8304
• DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107618

Adolescents in Germany eat fewer animal products than their parents, often for sustainability reasons. We investigated how adolescents differ from their parents' generation in sustainability food-choice motives, consumption of animal products, and corresponding behaviors such as advocating for and influencing decisions towards more sustainable family meals. In an online questionnaire, an educationally diverse sample of 500 adolescents (M = 17.9 years, range = 15–20) and 500 adults of their parents' generation (M = 52.2 years, range = 45–60) reported food-choice motives, their own and their family's diet style, how they advocate for sustainable food decisions at family meals (e.g., less meat), and how they influence different steps in family meal planning (e.g., grocery shopping). The two generations did not differ in sustainable food motives and mean consumption frequency of meat and animal products, but adolescents reported three times more often than their parents' generation to never eat meat. At shared family meals they advocated for eating plant-based substitutes (d = 0.27, p