Various side effects may make eating difficult, which can cause you to lose weight. Even a small drop in your weight (e.g. 3–4 kg), especially over a short period of time, may put you at risk of malnutrition. You can be malnourished even if you are overweight.
Unplanned weight loss and malnutrition can reduce your strength, energy and quality of life. This can affect how you respond to treatment, and side effects may be more severe and your recovery slower. During treatment and recovery, a dietitian can assess whether a feeding tube will help you maintain or gain weight.
For more on this, see Nutrition and cancer and listen to the podcast or watch the video below.
How to prevent unplanned weight loss
- Treat eating and drinking like medicine: something that you have to do to feel better.
- Eat 5–6 small meals a day rather than 3 large ones.
- Keep a selection of snacks and drinks handy for when you feel up to having them. Keep something in your bag, at work or in the car.
- Include high-energy and high-protein foods at every meal or snack. For example, try having milk-based drinks rather than water and choose cheese and biscuits instead of eating lollies.
- Try ready-to-use nutritional supplement drinks available from supermarkets and pharmacies (e.g. Sustagen, Ensure, Resource).
- Talk to your doctor, nurse or dietitian if you are losing weight, or if you have discomfort or pain when you are swallowing.
→ READ MORE: Changes to speech
Video: How to eat well after a cancer diagnosis
Podcast: Appetite Loss and Nausea
Listen to more of our podcast for people affected by cancer
Key resource
Download a PDF booklet on this topic.
A/Prof Martin Batstone, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon and Director of the Maxillofacial Unit, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, QLD; Polly Baldwin, 13 11 20 Consultant, Cancer Council SA; Martin Boyle, Consumer; Dr Teresa Brown, Assistant Director Dietetics, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Honorary Associate Professor, University of Queensland, QLD; Dr Hayley Dixon, Head, Clinical Support Dentistry Department, WSLHD Oral Health Services, Public Health Dentistry Specialist, NSW; Head and Neck Cancer Care Nursing Team, Royal Melbourne Hospital, VIC; Rhys Hughes, Senior Speech Pathologist, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, VIC; Dr Annette Lim, Medical Oncologist and Clinician Researcher – Head and Neck and Non-melanoma Skin Cancer, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, VIC; Dr Sweet Ping Ng, Radiation Oncologist, Austin Health, VIC; Deb Pickersgill, Senior Clinical Exercise Physiologist, Queensland Sports Medicine Centre, QLD; John Spurr, Consumer; Kate Woodhead, Physiotherapist, St Vincent’s Health, Melbourne, VIC; A/Prof Sue-Ching Yeoh, Oral Medicine Specialist, University of Sydney, Sydney Oral Medicine, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, NSW.
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