To Eat or Not to Eat Meat: How Vegetarian Dietary Choices Influence Our Social Lives - Paperback

by Charlotte de Backer (Editor), Julie Dare (Editor), Leesa Costello (Editor)

How does being vegetarian influence our social life? This book applies a narrative inquiry approach and presents stories from vegetarians across the globe that explore how our food choices can have complex social consequences.

Author Biography

Leesa Costello is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, specializing in the field of Health Communication. While her track record has been around social networking, online community and social media strategies for health promotion, she developed an interest in plant-based nutrition during her PhD research which was designed to help heart patients adopt healthier lifestyles. She is recognized as a qualitative scholar with the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology and has lead research projects underpinned by netnographic, ethnographic, phenomenological and narrative forms of inquiry. Her research portfolio is punctuated by diverse health topics including child health nutrition, blue space, body image, loneliness and isolation, domestic violence, homelessness, maternal health, blood donation, social marketing, environmental behavior and plant-based nutrition. Leesa has produced numerous peer-reviewed articles, some of which are published in high-ranking journals such as Children & Youth Services Review, Health Information & Libraries Journal and Nurse Education Today. Julie Dare is a Senior Lecturer and Public Health researcher in the School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, in Perth, Western Australia. She has demonstrated research expertise in ethnographic, phenomenological, case study and narrative methodologies across a range of qualitative and mixed methods interdisciplinary projects. She has a particular interest in the social context underpinning health behaviors such as alcohol use amongst older people, and the adoption of whole food plant-based diets, and has co-authored articles exploring issues associated with vegetarianism and veganism, and the role of social media in supporting the adoption and maintenance of a whole food plant-based diet. Julie has also led projects investigating social engagement and social isolation amongst older adults, and is currently involved in research ranging from an exploration of social capital in a community center, to promoting social engagement and wellbeing amongst frail older adults through exercise programs in residential aged care facilities. Julie has authored a book chapter exploring gender in mediated communication environments, and had numerous peer-reviewed articles published in journals including Health and Social Care in the Community, European Journal of Cultural Studies and Health Care for Women International. Charlotte De Backer is Associate Professor at the University of Antwerp, Dept. of Communication Sciences. She leads a group of scholars that study the interactions between media- and food consumption (FOOMS - Food, Media & Society, see https: //www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/food-media-society/). In collaboration with her colleagues and PhD students she studies how media do and can influence our eating habits, with a strong focus on food media other than traditional advertisements. Think of TV cooking shows, social media, food influencers, and so on. Attention is also paid to what strategies work best to endorse healthy eating habits, focusing on storytelling and social context factors. And, she also studies how the foods we eat influence our identity and social behavior: what we eat, who we eat with and whether we share foods may matter more than we think. https: //www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/charlotte-debacker/ Maryanne L. Fisher, PhD, is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada, and an Affiliate Faculty at Kinsey Institute in Indiana. She is an award winning teacher and has published over 100 scientific articles, mostly pertaining to women's attractiveness and intrasexual mating competition. She authored A Very Short Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology (forthcoming) edited the Oxford Handbook of Women and Competition (2017), and was the lead co-editor of Evolution's Empress: Darwinian Perspectives on the Nature of Women (2013).