Gender relations and couple negotiations of British men's food practice changes after prostate cancer.

Nutrition plays an important role in the health of men diagnosed with prostate cancer and dietary interventions can therefore be a significant part of prostate cancer survivorship supportive care. Family food provision, however, involves complex social interactions, which shape how men engage with their diets and dietary interventions. The role that gender plays in shaping prostate cancer couples' food practices and men's diets after a prostate cancer diagnosis is thought to be important but is little understood. This study explored couples' accounts of nutrition information seeking and diet change to gain a better understanding of how gender relations shaped men's food practices after prostate cancer diagnosis. Qualitative health interviews with men and their partners were conducted and analysed using interpretive descriptive methods. Findings demonstrated how couples navigated food change journeys that involved seeking information, deciding what changes were warranted and implementing and regulating diet changes. Two overarching themes that illustrated couples' food negotiations were called 'Seeking information and deciding on food changes' and 'Monitoring food changes'. Additional sub-themes described who led food changes, women's filtering of information, and moderation or 'treats'. Throughout these food change journeys interactions between men and women were at play, demonstrating how gender relations and dynamics acted to shape couples food negotiations and men's food practices. Findings reveal that attention to gender relations and the men's family food dynamics should inform diet interventions for men with prostate cancer in order to improve uptake

Heterosexual couples and prostate cancer support groups: a gender relations analysis.

Introduction: Men diagnosed with prostate cancer (PCa) can receive supportive care from an array of sources including female partners and prostate cancer support groups (PCSGs). However, little is known about how heterosexual gender relations and supportive care play out among couples who attend PCSGs. Distilling such gender relation patterns is a key to understanding and advancing supportive care for men who experience PCa and their families

Masculinities and patient perspectives of communication about active surveillance for prostate cancer

Objective: The purpose of this study is to describe connections between masculinities and patient perspectives of active surveillance (AS) related communication with male physicians. Method: An interpretive descriptive qualitative design was used to explore patient physician communication from the perspectives of 25 men on AS. In-depth, semistructured interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded. Key concepts were described and a masculinities gender framework guided analyses of patients' perspectives. Results: Patient physician communication of diagnosis, treatment options, and specificities of AS featured prominently within participants' interviews. Most participants reported brevity in patient physician communication amid accepting the physician's communication style and recommendations. Participants' accounts suggested "therapeutic" communications as contingent on positioning physicians as authoritative and assigning them control, while patients were stoic in accepting AS. However, some participants reported being confused about their diagnosis details and specific AS protocols, and resisted traditional physician patient hierarchies, desiring more collaborative decision-making processes. In this regard communications emerged as "threat," in that participants lacked and/or lost confidence in their physician and were uncertain and anxious about the legitimacy of AS. These findings were interpreted within a gender framework, showing how patients drew on an array of masculine ideals, including stoicism, denying illness, and respecting expertise in different ways. Conclusions: Our novel findings illuminate complexities of men's perspectives about patient physician communication in AS, and offer insights about how masculinities influence what can be understood as potentially helpful and unhelpful communication among this emergent patient population

Gender relations, prostate cancer and diet: re-inscribing hetero-normative food practices

Although diet might be a valuable adjunct to prostate cancer care, men typically have poorer diets than women and are less likely to change the way they eat after a cancer diagnosis. Gender theory suggests that dominant ideals of masculinity shape men's health and food practices; however, the role of female partners in men's diets is poorly understood. Through qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews, this article explores accounts of 14 Canadian couples' food practices guided by a gender relations framework to expose how tacit performances of masculinity and femininity interact to shape the diets of men with prostate cancer. Findings show that many men became more interested and involved in their diets after a prostate cancer diagnosis, practices that might be theorized as a counter hegemonic project or 'feminization', adding to other prostate cancer induced emasculations (i.e., treatment induced incontinence and impotence). At the same time, however, couples mutually limited men's engagement with diet while concurrently reinforcing women's traditional femininities in nurturing the men in their lives through food provision. Also embedded here were women's attempts to mitigate subordinate productions of masculinity by catering to their partner's tastes as well as monitoring their diets. Most couples mutually maintained traditional gender food 'roles' by positioning women as proficient leaders in domestic food provision and men as unskilled 'try-hard' and sometimes uninterested assistants. Findings also revealed complex gender power dynamics that predominated as complicit in sustaining hegemonic masculinity through women's deference to men's preferences and careful negotiation of instrumental support for men's diet changes. Overall men and women jointly worked to re-inscribe hetero-normative family food practices that shaped men's diets and nutritional health

Men, food, and prostate cancer: Gender influences on men’s diets

Although healthy eating might enhance long-term survival, few men with prostate cancer make diet changes to advance their well-being. Men's typically poor diets and uninterest in self-health may impede nutrition interventions and diet change. Food choice behavior is complex involving many determinants, including gender, which can shape men's health practices, diets, and prostate cancer experiences. Developing men-centered prostate cancer nutrition interventions to engage men (and where appropriate their partners) in promoting healthy diets can afford health benefits. This article presents an overview and synthesis of current knowledge about men's food practices and provides an analysis of diet and diet change behaviors for men with prostate cancer. Masculinity and gender relations theory are discussed in the context of men's food practices, and suggestions for future applications to nutrition and prostate cancer research and diet interventions are made

Prostate cancer, masculinity and food. Rationales for perceived diet change

Research indicating that certain diets can lower prostate-specific antigen levels suggests that diet change might be a beneficial treatment adjunct for low-grade prostate cancer. However, few men with prostate cancer adopt significant diet change, indicating a need to better understand how and why they make food choices. This qualitative study explored men's perceptions of their diets following a prostate cancer diagnosis, and the rationales underpinning diet changes (or lack thereof). Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 men ages 48-78 years who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer within the previous 5 years. Findings show that participants exhibited varied dietary patterns, which we labeled 'eating as usual', 'intensifying efforts', 'adding-on', and 'overhauling diets'. Four main domains informed rationales for diet changes or lack thereof: perception of pre-prostate cancer diet, diet and health understandings, orientation towards prostate cancer, and the need for " doing something." Dietary ideals framed as masculine, important, action-oriented and autonomous endeavors contributed to participants' food choice behaviors, suggesting that their alignment to masculine dietary ideals influenced if and how they engaged in diet change. A better understanding of how masculine food ideals shape food choice might be useful in expanding food choice models and in developing effective nutrition education interventions for this group