The Environmental Impacts of Omnivorous, Vegetarian, and Vegan Children and Adolescents in Germany: Results of the VeChi Diet and VeChi Youth Studies †
by
,
Laureen Kuhl
1, 
Vanessa Keller
2,
Stine Weder
2,
Ute Alexy
3,
Morwenna Fischer
3,
Markus Keller
2,*,
Andreas Michalsen
4,
Alfred Längler
5,
Andreas Sputtek
6 and
Wencke Gwozdz
1 1
Department of Consumer Research, Communication, and Food Sociology, University of Giessen, 35392 Giessen, Germany
2
Research Institute for Plant-Based Nutrition, 35444 Biebertal, Germany
3
Institute of Nutrition and Food Sciences (IEL), Nutritional Epidemiology, University of Bonn, 44225 Dortmund, Germany
4
Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Charité Universitätsmedizin, 14109 Berlin, Germany
5
Gemeinschaftskrankenhaus Herdecke, 58313 Herdecke, Germany
6
Medical Laboratory Bremen GmbH, 28359 Bremen, Germany
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Presented at the 14th European Nutrition Conference FENS 2023, Belgrade, Serbia, 14–17 November 2023.
Proceedings 2023, 91(1), 430; https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2023091430
Published: 15 May 2024
(This article belongs to the Proceedings of The 14th European Nutrition Conference FENS 2023)
Abstract
:Background and objectives: There is a lack of data on the environmental impact of children’s and adolescents’ food consumption as most studies only consider adult dietary intake and, in addition, use hypothetical diets or focus on specific food products. Hence, our aim was to assess two indicators of environmental impact of the total diet among omnivorous (OM), vegetarian (VG), and vegan (VN) children and adolescents from Germany. Methods: Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and land use (LU) were calculated using 3-day weighed dietary records from 820 participants (1–18 years old) of the cross-sectional VeChi Diet Study (n = 430, 1–3 years of age, conducted 2016–2018), the VeChi Youth Study (n = 390, 6–18 years, 2017–2019), and the life cycle-analyses food-item (SHARP-Indicators) database. Group differences of indicators were analysed using analysis of covariance. Results: On average, food consumption of OM, VG, and VN diets caused GHGE of 2.6, 1.6, and 1.0 kg CO2eq/kg food and LU of 3.1, 2.0, and 1.6 m2·year/kg food, respectively. The median total daily GHGE and LU amounts differed significantly between diet groups (p < 0.001). Standardisation to energy intake per 1000 kcal (GHGE: (OM) 2.2, (VG) 1.3, (VN) 0.9 kg CO2eq/1000 kcal; LU: (OM) 2.5, (VG) 1.6, (VN) 1.3 m2·year/1000 kcal) confirmed these results. Discussion and conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evaluation to show that even in children and adolescents, the GHGE and LU caused by an OM diet is considerably higher than the GHGE and LU on a VG or VN diet. In this way, plant-based diets performed better in terms of environmental sustainability.
Author Contributions
U.A., M.K. and S.W. designed the VeChi Diet and VeChi Youth study; U.A. and M.K. supervised the study; M.F., S.W., A.M. and A.L. were involved in the implementation and data collection; L.K. analysed the data and drafted the manuscript under the supervision of W.G. and S.W.; A.S. supervised the laboratory analysis; V.K. presented the manuscript at the 14th European Nutrition Conference FENS 2023, Belgrade, Serbia, 14–17 November 2023. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
The VeChi Diet study was partially funded by the Erna Graff Foundation for Animal Protection; the VeChi Youth Study was commissioned to the 14th DGE Nutrition Report 2020 published by the German Nutrition Society (DGE) and financially supported by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), Germany.
Institutional Review Board Statement
The studies were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Witten/Herdecke (VeChi Youth Study, 139/2017, 21 September 2017) and by the Ethics Committee of the University of Bonn (VeChi Diet Study, 046/17, 2 March 2017).
Informed Consent Statement
Informed consent was obtained from all subjects (or their parents) involved in the studies.
Data Availability Statement
The data described in the manuscript might be made available on request.
Conflicts of Interest
All authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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MDPI and ACS Style
Kuhl, L.; Keller, V.; Weder, S.; Alexy, U.; Fischer, M.; Keller, M.; Michalsen, A.; Längler, A.; Sputtek, A.; Gwozdz, W. The Environmental Impacts of Omnivorous, Vegetarian, and Vegan Children and Adolescents in Germany: Results of the VeChi Diet and VeChi Youth Studies. Proceedings 2023, 91, 430. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2023091430
AMA Style
Kuhl L, Keller V, Weder S, Alexy U, Fischer M, Keller M, Michalsen A, Längler A, Sputtek A, Gwozdz W. The Environmental Impacts of Omnivorous, Vegetarian, and Vegan Children and Adolescents in Germany: Results of the VeChi Diet and VeChi Youth Studies. Proceedings. 2023; 91(1):430. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2023091430
Chicago/Turabian StyleKuhl, Laureen, Vanessa Keller, Stine Weder, Ute Alexy, Morwenna Fischer, Markus Keller, Andreas Michalsen, Alfred Längler, Andreas Sputtek, and Wencke Gwozdz. 2023. "The Environmental Impacts of Omnivorous, Vegetarian, and Vegan Children and Adolescents in Germany: Results of the VeChi Diet and VeChi Youth Studies" Proceedings 91, no. 1: 430. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2023091430
