One of the worst things you can suggest to a cancer patient, or someone who has lost a loved one to cancer, is that there was something they could have done to prevent getting sick.
Or that, perhaps, they didn’t do everything they could to not get cancer. You know, basically suggesting that they deserved it.
And leave it to The Daily Mail to say that 18,000 women a year could be “saved” from breast cancer by “diet and exercise”.
“Cut out food and drink to avoid breast cancer” the headline reads.
I’m surprised they didn’t wait until Breast Cancer Awareness month to run that little doozy as surely, it would have been much more inflammatory then.
The Daily Mail and their “experts” suggest that:
“Thousands of women could avoid breast cancer if they adopted healthier lifestyles, experts say.”
Yes, avoided!
“They blame alcohol, lack of exercise and being overweight for four out of ten cases.”
Stop drinking so much! Maybe if you/your Grandma/Aunt/Mother didn't drink like an alcoholic hussy, she’d still be alive!
“Around 45,000 breast cancers are diagnosed each year, so at least 18,000 could be prevented if UK women drank less, kept a healthy weight and were more active. “
Women, your weight is the most important thing in the world. Maybe if all of those 45,000 women didn’t drink like Katie Price and simply ate more Ryvita’s like Fearn Britton they wouldn’t have cancer.
“Breastfeeding babies is also an important factor in cutting the risk of the disease, which kills 12,000 women a year.”
And there’s the zinger. Breastfeeding. If only you alcoholic fatties had breastfed your babies, maybe you’d still be alive! We’re sorry, Sally, if your had chosen to breastfeed you, instead of feeding your formula, she’d still be with us.
This new “study” certainly covers The Daily Mail’s signature issues with women: weight, drink, and breastfeeding.
While I am all for healthy lifestyles, drinking and eating with moderation, and, um, not dying of cancer – I’d like to find Jenny Hope, Don Shenkr, and Professor Martin Wiseman, and have a little chat with them about their responsibility in promoting and reporting FACTS when it comes to cancer and women’s health, not scare tactics or kooky, tabloid-perfect studies.
What about that whole hereditary, genetics thing?
What about if you were a Triathelte who never drinks and you somehow get cancer?
What if you were breastfed as a child, breastfed your children, and then somehow get cancer?
What about those women?
What about not acting as if cancer is something that you deserved or could have prevented, and is a horrible, and sometimes devestating thing?
Of course everyone should have a healthy lifestyle. Of course doing things like smoking and eating at McDonalds every day of your life increase your chances of getting sick with some sort of disease - cancer or otherwise. You should absolutely eat and drink healthily and excercise - for your own happiness and your health.
But articles like these are no better than that “doing housework can prevent breast cancer” BS because their intention is not to raise awareness of breast cancer or even healthy lifestyles amongst women.
They exist soley as misogynistic, disgusting scare tactics to keep women thin, breastfeeding and off alcohol. That way, if a woman does anything other than what Jenny Hope and The Daily Mail say is OK, and she gets breast cancer, it’s her own damn fault.
She must have had more than one glass of wine a night. She must have not exercised enough. She must have have not breastfed her children. (Gasp! What if she didn’t even have kids at all!) She probably had too many fatty foods in her diet.
It’s not genetic. It’s not hereditary. It’s not even unlucky.
It’s punishment.
Image via www.omega3-6-9.com