It would be interesting to have studies that distinguish between ethical vegans, ethical vegetarians, and cultural/religious vegetarians. Vegetarianism has bee

It would be interesting to have studies that distinguish between ethical vegans, ethical vegetarians, and cultural/religious vegetarians. Vegetarianism has been practiced around the world by for thousands of years among Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, some Greeks, etc and there are hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide who avoid meat for all sorts of reasons. Some are born into cultures and religions where it is the default, others go out of their way to choose it for ethical or health reasons. As one example, if studies found different rates of depression in ethical vegetarians compared to cultural/religious vegetarians then that might be an indication that the depression is correlated with the choice to practice a non-standard diet rather than the diet itself. And when it comes to veganism, that is a smaller and more recent phenomenon. Most of the vegans I know were not raised vegan and consider being vegan to be a major part of their identity, devote significant effort and commitment to it, take supplements, and are often actively involved in some kind of animal welfare activism. Interestingly I've also heard that about three-quarters of vegans are female, which makes me suspect there may be other confounding variables.