If you had any doubt that the food choices people make are influenced by their friends, family, and colleagues, a recent WIRED article provides the evidence. It describes the social implications of the U.S. obesity epidemic: “Weight gain had a stunning infection rate. If one person became obese, the likelihood that his friend would follow suit increased by 171%. The data exposed not only the contagious nature of obesity but the power of social networks to influence individual behavior,” which may very well include meat eating habits.

Perhaps more than obesity, eating meat may be analogous to smoking cigarettes. Both are public health issues; like smoking (and obesity), meat consumption is a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, and cancer, and therefore is certainly a significant personal health issue as well. And just like second-hand smoke, the secondary effects of meat consumption are far from inconsequential: increased healthcare costs, environmental devastation, animal suffering, etc.

Vegetarian advocates and business owners alike seek to grow the population of vegetarians, and they can do so in part through social networks. For vegetarian businesses, it makes sense to encourage customers to appeal to their network. In many ways, vegetarianism is a social phenomenon where friends, family members, and colleagues will be far more influential than an unknown company. For vegetarian food businesses, the important lesson to learn is how best to utilize the power of social networks.