No Love Like It
Feeding Someone Who is Sick
by Catherine Morley

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Based on decades of experience offering nutrition counselling to individuals and families; personal family experiences with illness and loss; and research with people who, owing to illness, disability, or ageing, were not able to eat as they once did, Registered Dietitian, Dr. Catherine Morley, has written an informative and instructional book, combining research reporting, memoir, journal entries, excerpts from interviews rewritten for theatre, and a self study workbook. No Love Like It: Feeding Someone Who is Sick was written to reassure readers that they are not alone in the challenges they face, and to understand that disruptions in feeding relationships during a time of changed health status are normal and to be expected, although very often come as a surprise. With this book, readers will be able to recognize the fundamental shifts that have occurred in their relationships with and through food owing to someone’s changed health status, either as a caregiver or as a person experiencing it; to develop plans to address the feeding challenges they are facing; and to learn where to get help. In the self study section of No Love Like It: Feeding Someone Who is Sick, Morley guides readers to reflect on the many aspects of eating and feeding outlined in the first section of the book. Readers can identify and sort through sources of “dietary cacophony”, the many and often contradictory “should” messages about eating and feeding that one hears, reads, or thinks about. Having identified all that has been on their minds, readers will then be able to decide on messages relevant to their situations to find ways to minimize any feeding-related distress. In this book, Morley reminds caregivers about the need to nourish themselves as their own eating is often thrown into disarray while caregiving.

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Award winning nutrition educator, Dr. Catherine Morley has worked as a registered dietitian for over 40 years. Their career began as a clinical dietitian and manager in hospitals and cancer care. During the time that Morley was working with seriously ill people and their families, the professional became personal when one of their brothers died after a lengthy illness. The grief and sadness associated with feeding a loved one in the hopes they might get better was not something Morley had previously considered incorporating into their nutrition counselling work. Intent on learning how to do that, and finding nothing written on eating with or feeding someone living with life-changing illness, Morley pursued a Ph.D. in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies at the University of Calgary. Their research was on meanings of eating and how these change with illness. Morley is one of the first dietitian-researchers internationally to use phenomenology (the study of the everyday) as a research approach. They have applied their research findings as a consultant in provincial- and national-level nutrition program design and evaluation, and as a university professor. Morley is a prolific author and co-author of academic and research studies pertaining to eating and feeding during times of illness, dietetics education, as well as eating and gender diversity. This is their first solo book, and their first work dedicated to caregivers and those in their circle of care. A lifelong volunteer, Morley served as Chair and is a life member and fellow of Dietitians of Canada; served on the Board of Caregivers Nova Scotia; is a member of the Canadian Centre of Excellence in Caregiving Advisory Network; and the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force Primary & Community Care Working Group. Catherine is co-founder of “Nutrition Counselling, Unscripted”, a training program for dietitians; a Death Doula candidate; an enthusiastic textilian; and most importantly, a mum.

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Contributors

Author

Catherine Morley