Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

tandfonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 231 posts

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#171

Post by King-Aaron »

hhs wrote: post #91
King-Aaron wrote: post #9

I'd say the first big thing to highlight is that correlation is not causation - you wouldn't want someone to take this study as proof that eating meat makes you less depressed. I would imagine that vegans (in particular vegans who chose their diet on ethical grounds) are overall more concerned about the state of the world around them - or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers - whi…

> I'd say the first big thing to highlight is A second big thing to highlight is the study disclosure at the bottom of this article. Four of the six authors "have previously received funding from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association."

Oof I didn't even read that far down, only skimmed over the abstract and introduction

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#172

Post by sparrish »

pvarangot wrote: post #75
King-Aaron wrote: post #9

I'd say the first big thing to highlight is that correlation is not causation - you wouldn't want someone to take this study as proof that eating meat makes you less depressed. I would imagine that vegans (in particular vegans who chose their diet on ethical grounds) are overall more concerned about the state of the world around them - or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers - whi…

That or people become vegan because they have depression and anxiety and are just trying to find a lifestyle that will help manage the symptoms. Then the vegan diet works, and they keep on not eating meat because their depression and anxiety actually got better. Not as good as someone that doesn't struggle with those from the get go, but better. That's another correlation, and if true it would actually mean that not…

I may be misunderstanding you but I don't think so.

While eating meat = depressed

While eating vegan = depression and anxiety got better

I would expect the results to show vegans had less depression if that were true. That's not what the study found.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#173

Post by subsection1h »

hhs wrote: post #91
King-Aaron wrote: post #9

I'd say the first big thing to highlight is that correlation is not causation - you wouldn't want someone to take this study as proof that eating meat makes you less depressed. I would imagine that vegans (in particular vegans who chose their diet on ethical grounds) are overall more concerned about the state of the world around them - or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers - whi…

> I'd say the first big thing to highlight is A second big thing to highlight is the study disclosure at the bottom of this article. Four of the six authors "have previously received funding from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association."

https://twitter.com/RickJWagner

Hey, Rick, do you have any studies by researchers funded by the National Right to Life Committee that show that women who haven't had abortions suffer less depression and anxiety?

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#174

Post by rank0 »

A lot of people ITT make the claim that vegetarians are inherently more empathetic. I am skeptical.

In my experience, vegetarians are frequently utilitarian. Empathy means understanding another person’s situation and requires placing a high value on personal relationships.

Utilitarians are focused instead on global impact and large scale societal cost/benefit.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#175

Post by King-Aaron »

Ansil849 wrote: post #135
King-Aaron wrote: post #9

I'd say the first big thing to highlight is that correlation is not causation - you wouldn't want someone to take this study as proof that eating meat makes you less depressed. I would imagine that vegans (in particular vegans who chose their diet on ethical grounds) are overall more concerned about the state of the world around them - or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers - whi…

I don't at all see how you managed to jump to the conclusion that vegans are "or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers". This seems entirely unfounded.

Totally anecdotally, I've noticed a lot of vegans that I know have a strong leaning to socialise with other vegans, who often discuss veganism and end up with a lot of pro-vegan/anti-omnivore content on their social media feeds. So from my observations a social echo chamber exists that makes my acquaintances feel that the world urgently needs to progress towards veganism to avert social injustice/climate change/other existential issues/etc.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#176

Post by generalizations »

issa wrote: post #25
generalizations wrote: post #10

Makes me concerned about the pressure to abstain from eating meat that I've been seeing recently. I wonder if, as a species, the trend away from meat eating will be to our collective detriment.

Not eating meat is one of the major things a person can do to reduce their carbon footprint, so I would imagine more people giving up meat would be very helpful collectively.

At the cost of making society significantly more depressed? No, thank you.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#177

Post by throwaway81523 »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #62
dahfizz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would reverse the causation. People become vegans because they are highly empathetic and emotionally driven - this personality type also is more susceptible to anxiety and depression

Not necessarily. I was a localvore before I went vegetarian, and the place where I got my chickens, pork, lamb and beef was ~10 miles from my house. (I live in a hipster city.) I did this because I liked meeting my animals and watching them be butchered. (Industrial meat production is wildly, horrifically cruel by comparison.) Now I'm vegetarian because meat is just too effing expensive when purchased ethically. I ca…

Rice and beans, or corn and beans, are classic recipes for protein combination in poorer demographics. I make those all the time in an instant pot and they are very convenient and satisfying. I stir in stuff like pasta sauce or Indian vegetable packets to add flavor.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#178

Post by jhanschoo »

King-Aaron wrote: post #9

I'd say the first big thing to highlight is that correlation is not causation - you wouldn't want someone to take this study as proof that eating meat makes you less depressed. I would imagine that vegans (in particular vegans who chose their diet on ethical grounds) are overall more concerned about the state of the world around them - or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers - whi…

My two cents being a vegetarian 6/7 days a week is that day-to-day figuring out where / what you can eat, how to meet nutritional needs, what to cook, etc. gives me more stress than any philosophical concerns.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#179

Post by TheDong »

sparrish wrote: post #172
pvarangot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That or people become vegan because they have depression and anxiety and are just trying to find a lifestyle that will help manage the symptoms. Then the vegan diet works, and they keep on not eating meat because their depression and anxiety actually got better. Not as good as someone that doesn't struggle with those from the get go, but better. That's another correlation, and if true it would actually mean that not…

I may be misunderstanding you but I don't think so. While eating meat = depressed While eating vegan = depression and anxiety got better I would expect the results to show vegans had less depression if that were true. That's not what the study found.

The point of the parent comment is that it is possible that having a correlation like this is actually an inverse of the causation. You're indeed misundestanding their point.

An example of a case with inverse causation vs correlation is "A study found out that there is a strong correlation between the number of firemen at a house on fire and how large the fire is. As such, we should send fewer firemen to fires to ensure they are smaller".

The parent poster isn't claiming the same sort of reverse-causation is true here, but merely pointing out that it's possible.

To explain more clearly the parent poster's hypothetical: let's say there's the normal population, which is say 20% depressed and 5% vegan. Let's say there's a second population which suffers an 80% depression rate while eating meat, and a 50% depression rate while vegan. If that second population entirely goes vegan, they now have a 50% depression rate, which is 30% higher than the normal population, so a study would show "this group of vegans are more depressed than a typical group of meat eaters", but at the same time it would be true that being vegan improved their rates of depression.

Re: Meat and mental health: Meat eaters suffer less depression, anxiety

#180

Post by chmod600 »

Rantenki wrote: post #34
ngoel36 wrote: post #21

Disclosure: "This study was funded in part via an unrestricted research grant from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association."

I thought you were kidding, but I checked, and sure enough at the bottom: "This study was funded in part via an unrestricted research grant from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The sponsor of the study had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report." Maybe not, but how likely is it that they'll continue funding more…

If this were real science, it wouldn't matter because anyone could repro the results.

But almost all of this nutritional "science" is just people in white coats messing with statistics and sounding authoritative. Goes for the "meat is good" camp and the "meat is bad" camp.

(My personal belief is that only a very small amount of meat is good for your body, but having more meat is good for your brain.)

Post reply on HN