Education- and income-related differences in processed meat consumption across Europe: The role of food-related attitudes

Dietary behaviors differ between socio-economic groups and are one key determinant of health inequalities. Psychological factors such as attitudes are assumed to underlie the relation between inequality and dietary behaviors, but this assumption has rarely been tested empirically. We focus on a specific food group shown as detrimental to health: processed meat. In two representative international surveys (Survey 1: N = 10,226 participants from nine European countries – Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK; Survey 2: N = 9149 participants from the same countries, except not including Austria and the Netherlands), participants reported inequality indicators (education, income), processed meat consumption as well as their attitudes toward nutrition and food. There were diverging relationships between indicators of inequality and processed meat consumption: the higher the educational attainment, the lower the consumption of processed meat (rSurvey1 = −0.062, p