Men and women appear to view nutrition and fitness through different lenses, with attitudes shaped early in life, according to a new report from Murphy Research.
The report, State of Our Health: Exploring Gender Differences in Food, found that women are more likely to focus on nutrition at the expense of fitness, and are more interested in managing their weight through diet. Men, meanwhile, are more engaged in physical fitness and tend to use nutrition to support their fitness goals.
“When men become engaged with nutrition, they are often more engaged than women are in specific types of ways,” said Sarah Marion, director of syndicated research at Murphy Research.
Men are actually more likely to follow and stick to a formal diet than women, for example, and appear to be interested in, or motivated by, the structured nature of specific dietary regimens. In fact, the percentage of men who say they follow a formal food plan increased sharply during the pandemic, with 46 percent of nutrition-engaged men reporting that they follow a formal food plan as of the third quarter of last year, compared with 36 percent of nutrition-engaged women.
Nutrition-engaged men are also more confident about their knowledge and performance when it comes to diet and nutrition, and more likely to describe healthy eating as easy, while women are more likely to see it as a struggle, the report found.
Some of the different attitudes about nutrition and fitness appear to begin at a young age, the report found. Just over half of men — 51 percent said they were encouraged to participate in sports from an early age, compared to 34 percent of women, for example. In addition, women are significantly more likely to remember struggling with their weight as children, and that concern lingers in adulthood, with 45 percent of women citing losing weight as a motivation to improve their diets, compared to 35 percent of men.
Although the research also showed considerable overlap between men’s and women’s attitudes around fitness and nutrition, the gender differences could be seen throughout the participants’ responses, Marion said. The researchers had hoped the results might show that younger generations of women were shifting away from the stereotypical association of their diet with their weight and appearance, but that was not the case.
“There's a pushback against this long-term gender difference in what nutrition can and should do for you, but it's like a large ship,” she said. “Turning that huge ship around is going to take some time, and it’s going to happen incrementally.”
Marion noted that even though women tend to become interested in nutrition at an earlier age than men, they still tend to lack confidence in their knowledge around the topic as they get older, compared with men. The report found that 70 percent of nutrition-engaged men rated themselves highly on a scale of 1-10 when asked to assess their diet and nutrition, while only 59 percent of women gave themselves high marks.
Women also tend to have a much broader range of motivations for being engaged with nutrition, the survey found. These motivations included improving their mood, reducing stress, boosting energy and feeling better overall, among others, in addition to motivations around weight management and appearance. Motivators that were cited more often by men were limited to increasing longevity, improving heart health, and following doctor recommendations.
Women were also more likely to cite barriers to meeting their nutrition goals, including a lack of motivation, price, lack of energy, and hunger.
Marion cited several opportunities for food and beverage brands, including helping women feel positive about their efforts around diet and nutrition.
“Nobody wants to feel that healthy eating is a struggle,” she said.
Other takeaways from the research included:
• Women tend to be more interested in specific functional claims, including those involving mood and energy, especially from products they already buy.
• Men, however, with their preference for dietary structure, are more likely to respond to products’ alignment with various eating styles and food regimens. They are also looking for “shortcuts” indicated on product labels — specifically organic or all-natural callouts — to help them identify better-for-you foods.
The State of our Health research involves ongoing monthly online data collection from a nationally representative sample of consumers, as well as qualitative supplemental research, conducted quarterly.
Related: Gen X Specialty Food Consumers: What They Want; Millennial Specialty Food Consumers: What They Want.