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The Food Programme: Eating After Cancer: Can rebuilding relationships with food help cancer patients with their recovery?

29/03/2020

Eating After Cancer: Can rebuilding relationships with food help cancer patients with their recovery?

BBC Radio 4 - The Food Programme, Eating After Cancer: Can rebuilding relationships with food help cancer patients with their recovery?

How cancer can impact our relationship with food - and why it's so important to rebuild it

From her kitchen table, the self-isolated Sheila Dillon explores how cancer can impact relationships with food and eating, and why - and how - those relationships can be rebuilt.

One of the unexpected side-effects of dealing with cancer can be how it impacts relationships with food and eating.

The various treatments can take away both appetite, and the ability to eat and enjoy food - which has a knock-on effect on the patient's health, social life and wider wellbeing...

Sheila Dillon knows this better than most: eight years ago, she was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma, and has experienced firsthand what it's like to lose the ability to enjoy a good meal, because of illness.

This is an issue that hasn’t always been given due attention, by medics or patients – but a shift is underway: there’s growing recognition that people with cancer not only need nutritious food, but also that the pleasure of eating can actually aid their wellbeing and recovery.

Under self-isolation in the coronavirus outbreak because of her 'immuno-compromised’ status from being on maintenance chemo, Sheila delves into the stories of people recovering from or living with cancer, who have been forced to readdress their relationship with what and how they eat; as well as the researchers and cooks pioneering new, food-based solutions.

Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Lucy Taylor.

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