Family influences on food choice: context of surviving breast cancer

Objective: To explore women's perceptions of family influences on food decision-making in the context of having had breast cancer or not having had breast cancer. Design: Individual interviews exploring women's perceptions of their eating habits, health status, and diet, health, and breast cancer beliefs. Setting: In Vancouver, a large, multicultural, Canadian city, interviews were held in women's homes or offices or at the university. Participants: A culturally diverse convenience sample of women aged 40 to 60 years, including breast cancer survivors (n = 29) and women who had not had breast cancer (n = 32). Analysis: Verbatim interview transcripts were coded by one of the authors, and themes were developed by sorting and summarizing transcript segments. Results: Women who had not had breast cancer believed that they were catering to family preferences, even at the expense of their own health. In particular, men's 'meat and potatoes' diet proved to be a barrier to dietary change. Breast cancer survivors experienced family members more as supporting than resisting healthful eating. Believing that the diagnosis had shifted their priorities, some women made healthful dietary changes regardless of family response. Conclusions and Implications: Women experience family influence as significant in food decision-making. An illness diagnosis may alter women's and their families' negotiations of competing values, such that healthful eating takes on greater priority than food preferences or maintaining social relations through catering to others' tastes. This may be an opportune time to help women introduce healthful eating. KEY WORDS: food choice, family, social influences, food behavior