People who get cancers -- except for breat cancer -- are more likely to be
low income people.

We and they are told that people who get cancers  are lazy (sloth) and
ignorant of what they should be eating.

The evidence however indicates that income and social class are the best
predictors of cancers independent of "lifestyle" and even then eating
fruits and vegetables is heavily determined by life circumstamces most of
which are beyond the control of individuals.

The messages then:

1. You are responsible for your own cancers.
2.  If you engage in these activities it is your own fault for getting
cancer.
3.  Yet, the evidence indicates that the determinants of cancer -- both
environmental and lifestyle -- are heavily structured by societal
allocation of resources.
4.  Therefore, governments CAN ASSUME they have NO responsibility to
address these issues, and people who get cancer -- usually more prevalent
among the poor -- have nobody to blame but themselves for their
predicament.
5. And we health workers did all we could by letting these poor souls know
their "lifestyle habits" are leading them to the grave.

I repeat the 10 tips that are consistent with that story. And then the ones
more consistent with the actual evidence.

Ten Tips For Better Health
 - Donaldson, 1999

Don't smoke. If you can, stop. If you can't, cut down.

Follow a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Keep physically active.

Manage stress by, for example, talking things through and making time to
relax.

If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation.

Cover up in the sun, and protect children from sunburn.

Practise safer sex.

Take up cancer screening opportunities.

Be safe on the roads: follow the Highway Code.

Learn the First Aid ABC : airways, breathing, circulation


YET THE EVIDENCE INDICATES THAT:

 Ten Tips for Staying Healthy
 - Dave Gordon, 1999.

Don't be poor. If you can, stop. If you can't, try not to be poor for
long.

Don't have poor parents.

Own a car.

Don't work in a stressful, low paid manual job.

Don't live in damp, low quality housing.

Be able to afford to go on a foreign holiday and sunbathe.

Practice not losing your job and don't become unemployed.

Take up all benefits you are entitled to if you are unemployed, retired or
sick or disabled.

Don't live next to a busy major road or near a polluting factory.

Learn how to fill in the complex housing benefit/ asylum application forms
before you become homeless and destitute


Okay?

dr

To unsubscribe send one line: unsubscribe click4hp to: [log in to unmask] . To view archives or modify subscription see: http://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/click4hp.html