Intelligent people have known it all along, aparently. And it can now be positively stated: Becoming vegetarian is a 'smart' choice.
In its online report by British Medical Journal BMJ Online First, a recent study now shows that intelligent children are more likely to turn vegetarian voluntarily as they grow slightly older.
The findings were similar to those of other studies that have showed more intelligent people were apt to eat a healthier diet and exercise more.
Was this why a team of vegetarians won the BBC Test the Nation competition in September, when they realized the highest overall IQ score and defeated teams of varying categories?
As Marie Bidmead, a 68 year old vegetarian mother of five from Churcham, Gloucester, who scored the highest marks in the contest said, "I think it shows we veggies are good thinkers. We think about what we eat for a start."
The study was carried out by investigators from the University of Southampton. Although they proposed that non-vegetarians paid greater attention to their diet they were not very sure about the reasons for their choice to become vegetarians. They could not say for a fact whether they became vegetarian out of consideration for animals or just as a choice of lifestyle.
The study of the connection between IQ and vegetarianism was initiated as a result of the interest of doctors over the incidence of lower risk of heart disease for people with higher intelligence.
All the risk factors for heart disease such as a high cholesterol level, high blood pressure and corpulence are markedly lower in vegetarians. This set the researchers to wondering if this was the reason for these healthy people also having a high IQ.
As a part of the study they referred to cases of over 8000 people born in 1970 when their IQ was measured in 1980 at age 10. Of the same people, now 36 years old, 366 were found to be vegetarians. (a third of these ate chicken or fish but none touched red meat), 9 were vegan and 123 stated they were vegetarian but reported eating fish or chicken.
What must not be over looked is that the now 36 year old vegetarians had recorded five IQ points more on average when they were 10.
Men who were vegetarian had had an IQ score of 106, compared with 101 for non-vegetarians; while female vegetarians averaged 104, compared with 99 for non-vegetarians.
Besides this, each 15-point rise in IQ scores in the study, was linked to the likelihood of being a vegetarian increasing by 38 percent. Adjusting to factors such as social class and education did not affect the consistency of the link.
Thus they made the connection between higher IQ and higher standards of health in these vegetarians.
Not only were they smarter, but the 366 vegetarians proved to be better educated and of a higher social class. They, however, were not necessarily wealthier and the chances were greater than they were working for charities or in education. Thus a parallel was also drawn between the same ethical considerations that determined their choice of diet and their choice of service.
A difference in IQ score between strict vegetarians and those who said they were vegetarian but who reported eating fish or chicken did not show up.
Lead researcher Catharine Gale however cautioned that the link may be merely an example of many other lifestyle preferences that might be expected to vary with intelligence, such as choice of newspaper, but which may or may not have implications for health.
But Dr Frankie Phillips, of the British Dietetic Association, compared it to the case of the chicken and the egg. “Do people become vegetarian because they have a very high IQ or is it just that they tend to be more aware of health issues?" he asked.
