Gendered eating: Can gender role orientations explain gender differences in healthy eating?

A healthy diet is essential for good health and vital to avoid overweight, obesity and many noncommunicable diseases like diabetes or heart disease (WHO, 2020). Across different studies, women have been reported to engage in healthier eating than men (e.g., Arganini et al., 2012; Fagerli & Wandel, 1999). However, the debate about gender differences so far widely ignores factors that can explain these differences. Gender role orientations, defined as an individuals’ identification with certain personality characteristics associated with masculinity and femininity in a given society (Bem, 1974) might be one of these explaining factors. Individuals of the same gender can considerably vary in their identification with female and male characteristics (Bem, 1974) and those gender role orientations seem to be closely linked to health-related behaviors (e.g., Hunt et al., 2007; Sieverding et al., 2005; Zimmermann et al., 2011). Yet, research on the influence of gender role orientations on healthy eating is scarce (Fleming & Agnew-Brune, 2015) and no study so far examined whether gender role orientations can explain the effect of gender on healthy eating. Therefore, this study will investigate whether the effect of gender on healthy eating is mediated by gender role orientations. Moreover, we aim to investigate whether gender role orientations can also explain gender differences in the theorized antecedents of healthy eating according to the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA; Schwarzer, 1992, 2008).