Perceiving a need for dietary change in adults living with and beyond cancer: A cross-sectional study

BackgroundMany people living with and beyond cancer (LWBC) do not meet dietary recommendations. To implement a healthier diet, people LWBC must perceive a need to improve their diet.MethodsParticipants included people diagnosed with breast, prostate or colorectal cancer in the UK. Two binary logistic regression models were conducted with perceived need for dietary change as the outcome (need to improve vs. no need). Predictor variables included demographic and clinical characteristics, receipt of dietary advice, and either body mass index (BMI) or adherence to seven relevant World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) dietary recommendations.ResultsThe sample included 5835 responses. Only 31% perceived a need to improve their diet. Being younger (odds ratio [OR] 0.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 94-0.95), female (OR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.15-1.53), not of white ethnicity (OR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.48-2.27), not married/cohabiting (OR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.16-1.52) and having received dietary advice (OR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.43-1.86) was associated with an increased odds of perceiving a need to improve diet. This association was also seen for participants with two or more comorbidities (OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.09-1.57), those not meeting the recommendations for fruit and vegetables (OR = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.41-0.55), fat (OR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.58-0.77), and sugar (OR = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.75-0.98) in the dietary components model and those who had a higher BMI (OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.32-1.77) in the BMI model.ConclusionsMost of this sample of people LWBC did not perceive a need to improve their diet. More research is needed to understand the reasons for this and to target these reasons in dietary interventions. Despite published dietary recommendations, we found that many people living with and beyond cancer do not follow a healthy diet and only 31% of our sample (n = 5835) perceived a need to improve their diet. Being younger, female, not of white ethnicity, not married/cohabiting, having more comorbidities, having a higher body mass index, and not meeting various dietary recommendations was associated with perceiving a need to improve diet.image