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Women's Experiences of Eating with Changed Health
Status
by Catherine Morley, PhD, RDN, FDC
This study was undertaken to explore women's experiences of eating and feeding with changed health status.
Indepth interviews were conducted with 11 women; three whose lives were relatively the same after a period of adjustment to their condition and eight whose lives were altered by their condition or the effects of treatment. Transcripts underwent thematic analysis and interpretation. Findings indicated very different experiences for informants in the Life-Altered and Life-the-Same groups. The latter had learned about and adjusted to their new diets. After a period of adjustment, eating and feeding activities carried on much as they always and informants achieved anticipated physiologic goals. Household and beyond household eating and feeding routines were minimally affected.
In contrast, informants in the Life-Altered group experienced profound changes in their abilities to ingest, digest, and eliminate food, in their physical appearance, and enjoyment of eating. Anticipated physiologic effects of dietary change were not achieved. While family and friends helped with shopping and cooking when the informants were acutely ill, informants resumed these roles as soon as they were able even though they remained unwell. Beyond household activities were eliminated or curtailed. The extent of change was difficult emotionally and prompted personal reflections on possible meanings of suffering.
Informants' seemed to question long held values and beliefs about eating, many of which were previously unthought, particularly the ability to control one's body through eating. Preserving one's role in feeding the family seemed to relate to the importance of women's roles as nurturers and creators of family through feeding.
This study suggests that many aspects of eating and feeding are intertwined with how women construct their identities and that changes with illness affecting these behaviours prompt reconsideration or recreation of identity. The Eating and Feeding with Changed Health Status conceptual framework that emerged from this study offers a means to sort through and explore clients' experiences and narratives, and to consider approaches to nutrition counselling and dietetic research that take a broad view of the role of eating and feeding in the lives of women living with changed health status.
E-Mail: kikimorley@shaw.ca
West
Vancouver, British Columbia
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