Cancer is a worldwide disease, and in recognition of that fact the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) has designated today as World Cancer Day. What’s interesting about this is the theme they have designated for their next year’s focus: “I love my healthy active childhood.”
Why, you might ask, is a leading international cancer organization choosing to emphasize children and obesity as a target for this campaign?
I think many of us tend to underestimate cancer as a global health issue. Poverty, education, and limited financial resources make cancer a much different disease in many parts of the world, particularly in underdeveloped economies. The sad truth is that many people in underdeveloped countries don’t live long enough to develop cancer. And those that do all too often simply don’t have access to effective treatments, even those we take for granted such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
What we take for granted—including prevention and treatment, such as mammograms, colonoscopy, and pap smears—are essentially luxuries in too many countries. Tobacco use is on the increase internationally, and millions worldwide will die from tobacco related diseases in the coming decades. The spread of this scourge—due in no small part to companies based or started here in the United States—is happening just as we are seeing decreasing disease and deaths from tobacco as we stop smoking.
But there is another interesting dynamic going on throughout the world that is in no small part due to our culture influencing both developed and underdeveloped countries: we are also sending our very unhealthy eating styles to all parts of the globe.
The net result is an increase in obesity, especially among children. And that explains why the UICC has decided to focus on obesity in children as part of a larger cancer awareness campaign.
We know—as I have often recited in the pages of this blog—what we can do to significantly reduce our burden of suffering from cancer: avoid tobacco (either directly or indirectly), eat a health diet, maintain a healthy body weight, engage in physical activity on a regular basis, and follow the American Cancer Society guidelines for the prevention and early detection of cancer.
Unfortunately, when it comes to our diet, too many of us aren’t doing such a good job.
The net result has been a significant increase in overweight and obesity in this country and elsewhere, in places far and wide. And that, my friends, means not only more heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and strokes, but also an increase in the number of many cancers as well.
Surveys have been done in the United States that show very few of us are aware that there is a link between our weight and our risk of cancer.
As part of the UICC campaign, they did an international survey on awareness regarding the relationship between obesity and cancer risk and found that 40% of the people in the Americas, western Asia and Australia and New Zealand were not aware of this risk. As reported by the UICC, even more people in other countries did not know about this relationship.
But here are the more staggering numbers from their survey and calculations: an estimated 22 million children around the world are overweight or obese right now. And, according to the UICC, 3 to 4 million new cancer cases could be prevented every year by reducing overweight and obesity. That is a truly impressive number.
The UICC is correct in noting that we develop our eating habits (and many other habits and behaviors) during childhood, so the place to really start influencing our health begins when we are young. Thus, the reason for this year’s campaign.
The American Cancer Society is fully supportive of this new initiative. Our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. John Seffrin—who recently served as President of the UICC—noted that ten percent of school-age children in the world are overweight, including up to 45 million who are classified as obese.
Dr. Seffrin emphasized in his remarks about the UICC campaign that organizations like the UICC and the American Cancer Society need to make it possible for everyone to develop good habits and carry them into adulthood. The inevitable benefit will be better health, and fewer deaths from cancer.
As the oft-quoted statement reminds us, it takes a village to provide support for all of us to do what we need to do.
When it comes to decreasing the burden of cancer through developing healthy habits and reducing our risk of cancer and other diseases, we now know it clearly takes a world.
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